Set the Fire to the Third Bar
by lizzie056
Summary: -Under Reconstruction. New and improved version will be ready by the end of the month!-
1. Chapter I

You know when people recount near-death experiences they say, "I felt my heart stop"? Well I did. Really just, stop. Then I felt it start again, in my wrists, my throat, my fingertips. The hair on the back of my head stood up. My hands felt like ice. I could hear the blood roaring in my ears. I didn't know what had hit me.

Actually, that's a lie; I know exactly what hit me. A bloody big double-decker bus that's what hit me. Gave me quite a shock to be honest. I imagine it gave the tourist quite a shock too, old cynic that I am. There I was, minding my own business, (that's another lie actually, I never mind my own business, I'm incredibly nosy.), when the next thing I know I step out to cross the road and BAM!

I should be dead. Maybe I am dead. But then if I'm dead how is it that I'm telling you this? Am I so opinionated that even Death itself won't stop me from ranting on? Well, no. You see, another thing people often say after a NDE is that, for them at least, the world will never be the same place again. I'll agree with this whole-heartedly, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my reason might be slightly different from everyone else's. For most people the world is different because they suddenly realise the beauty of a dog turd on the pavement outside their house and burst into tears, or worse, poetry, at the slight of this masterful poop which they might never have seen had they gone and had the misfortune to actually die.

I'm afraid I won't be writing An Ode to a Turd because, for me, lives little nuances aren't what have made the world so irreplaceably different. What has made the world so irreplaceably different is that I was struck down by a killer bus off Parliament Square in 2008, and woke up in a field in Derbyshire in 1813.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me first take you back to the morning of the 6th July, 2008, when everything, relatively speaking, was perfectly normal.

* * *

London in the summer is wonderful. London in the summer when you've just enjoyed a shagathon with the love of your life, (who just happens to have a NET worth of 10 billion), is _really_ wonderful. The sort of wonderful that makes a girl smile so much it looks like she's slept with a coat-hanger in her mouth. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, the early morning traffic was buzzing and Will Darcy was snoring. Pure, unadulterated bliss.

I've never been one to put much stock in physical appearance, (couldn't afford to living with my sisters. Be indifferent or be bitter, that was the choice), but Will, when he's like that, fast asleep, hair ruffled, slight stubble, he's not just handsome, he's beautiful. I'm sure I must have let out my fair share of sighs as I watched him sleep. I am...I was, without doubt, the luckiest girl in the world. Or certainly I thought I was, until the phone rang.

That woke him up I can tell you. Suddenly more beast than beauty he pick up the receiver, grunted "what?" in a way that makes me feel very unladylike feelings, and then handed me the handset looking for all the world like the boy who was caught with his hand in the sweet tin.

"It's you Mother." He mouthed, obviously reading the look on my face.

"Oh...Hello Mum."

"Lizzy! Do you know how long it's taken me to get a hold of you?! First I tried your home and you weren't there! Then I tried your mobile and you weren't there. So I tried phoning your office and _you weren't there_! Honestly! What if something important had happened? We're not as young as we used to be your Father and I. We could have been _dead_ for all you knew or Kitti or Lydia could have been raped and left for _dead_ and you're just off gallivanting around doing whatever it is you do! Where are you anyway?"

"I'm at Will's."

"Will! Oh goodness yes! And how is your William today? Not working too hard I hope? You know I only read in the paper yesterday about all these young go-getters today working themselves into an early grave. But he's fine, isn't he Lizzy."

I looked over at the pillow which had replaced my boyfriend's head. "Yes Mum, Will's fine."

"And you're both fine together?"

"Yes Mum, we're both fine together."

There was a pause, a merciful pause. I knew full well why there was a pause: 30 miles North my Mother was trying to determine whether it would be safe to ask if she could start looking for a wedding hat ("Oh I would so love to see a summer wedding Lizzy. You know your Father and I had to settle for February! I mean what sort of month is that to get married in? Hardly romantic is it?").

"Mum?" Quick before she strikes! "How exactly did you get Will's number?"

"Oh, when you were up for Easter I might have seen in your Blackberry. Really Lizzy, you just left it lying on the kitchen table, anyone could have come in and stolen it, and then where would you be?! In deep trouble that's where!"

"Mum I...I...I've got to go. I've got a meeting at seven, can't be late."

I'm pretty sure she was still gabbing on as I put the phone down, but whose fault is that? Going through my personal stuff! I should bloody well-

"She is your Mother." Said Mr. Voice-of-Reason, thirty minutes later as I explained the whole conversation to him in Starbucks. "She probably thinks she has the right."

"But what about _my_ right! My right to have a personal life separate from my family."

He grinned. "I don't think anyone has that right."

"Well I think it's appalling and shall be writing to the UN as soon the morning meeting is over. And maybe Amnesty International as well while I'm at it. And the EU. And The Times."

"You work for The Times."

"You own The Times, but you still write to it."

"When have I ever done that?"

"Yesterday, you sent me an e-mail, my e-mail account is a work account, I work for The Times, ergo, you wrote to The Times."

I was quite pleased with my little bit of ergoing. I am after all an intelligent 28 year old career woman; I can ergo when I want to, but Will just smirked. "I love it when you reason," he, well I can only truthfully describe it as a growl, as he put our coffees down on a table, pulled me to him and then just snogged me for about five minutes!

After what didn't seem long enough he pulled away. I think I just about managed to say "yu-huh", when he grinned again, pecked me on the cheek and with a "see you later", headed off towards the nice shiny area of London where people who make lots of money by dealing with lots of money play.

* * *

If I had known that that Starbucks Latte might very well have been my last I might have savoured it a bit more. If I had known that by lunchtime I wouldn't be walking around cosmopolitan London I might have decided to wear something a bit more demure than knee high black leather boots, black hot-pants and an over-sized shirt that didn't belong to me but certainly looked much better on me. If I had known that that might have been the last phone call I ever received from my Mother, I mightn't have answered. But of my many talents, foresight isn't one. Maybe that's why I stepped out into The Strand. If I had known that a big, red London bus was about to come ploughing around the corner, I probably wouldn't have stepped out. But I did. And I felt my heart stop.

I can't remember seeing any white light. I don't think I heard my Grandma's voice, though that could be because Grandma was a raging alcoholic and so one would presume isn't in the proximity of any white lights. What I do remember was a warm summer breeze. Bird song. Dirt under my fingers. I had just been hit by a bus, but I wanted to open my eyes. So I did. I was staring at a ladybird, walking along a blade of grass. I had just been hit by a bus, but I wanted to stand up. So I did. I was in a field. Not so much a field actually, more of a meadow. A meadow on a hillside. A meadow on a hillside surrounded by many more hills. A meadow, that certainly wasn't London.

I admit, I did think for a moment that I must be dead. It was a logical thought really. Hit by a bus, wake up in some beautiful field. I'd never been an atheist: I'm not arrogant enough to presume I know exactly how the universe is made up, but I'm certainly not a believer either. Still, hit by a bus. The thought kept racing through my head. Hit by a bus...feel okay. Standing. Hit by a bus. Standing in a field, feeling..okay?

Actually, I wasn't feeling okay, my feet hurt. That was more to do with the boots than the bus, but it was enough to convince me that I wasn't dead, unless Hell is wearing high heels for all eternity. So if I wasn't dead, where was I? Bag; mobile; call W...No call. No signal. Well, that put me right back to thinking I was dead. Nowhere, and I mean nowhere, in the world no longer has no signal. You could be standing on the South Pole and, providing you have the latest model, your phone will pick up a signal. And that's when it hit me.

Oh...fuck, I thought. Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Fucky, fucky, fuck, fuck fuck! Fucky, fucky, fucky...

Where am I? Where the fuck is this place? What sort of place has no signal? Where the fuck did that bus come from? I'm dead. I must be dead. Bloody, bloody bus! Can't be dead, feet hurt too much. I have to get to that meeting. Margret's going to kill me. Ah! Can't kill me if I'm already dead! Wait that's good. Brightside, yes. Look on the Brightside. Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it. Life's a laugh and death's a joke it true...Can't remember the rest. Bugger. Bugger...ation.

Well, I couldn't stand in a field all day trying to remember Monty Python songs. There had to be a road somewhere, and if there's a road there'd be a motorway, and if I could just find out where I am, all will be well. In front of me the grass was as fresh as grass in the morning should be, but behind it was dented, trodden on, as if someone had been walking. Somewhat odd, with hindsight, that these tracks should just stop right where I was standing, but as it was this nanometre of oddness was not even registering on the whole metre ruler that was my life (or death) at that current moment. Tracks had to lead somewhere, so I followed them.

It wasn't exactly Homer's Odyssey, I walked through one field, and then another and then another. None of them were cultivated, which again seems odd now but I didn't even think about at the time. In fact, there was hardly any cultivated land at all, it was all just wide, like a park almost, but much bigger than any park I'd ever seen. I walked and walked, for what must have been a good five miles, (in high heel boots bear in mind), and found no road, no houses, not even a proper path just the trampled earth which I followed. Eventually I came to the foot of another hill, when inspiration stuck me. With so many hills, I could be in a valley. Valleys suddenly become the exception that proves the 'no signal' rule, and if I could just get to the top of this slope, I bet I'd be able to pick something up, after all, the higher you are the closer you are to all those satellites. Genius.

There was no signal, but there was something. I'd been stood looking down over the way I had climbed, which truth be told was pretty high. No signal so I turned to face the way I still had to go but instead of another field I saw, a house, house in the grandest sense of the word. It was bloody huge! Not Buckingham Palace like to pretty impressive all the same. Nicer than Buckingham actually, a lot nicer. It looked like the set of a BBC period drama, a happy one, nothing by Dickens. And you know what I thought? I'll tell you what I thought, I thought thank fuck. It would be English Heritage or National Trust or something like that, and there would be people and cars and phones that work! There might even be a gift shop with little tubs of ice cream! Oh happy, happy day!

The pain in my feet was all but forgot, I couldn't care less. I hoisted by bag over my shoulders and ran like I'd never ran before. People would think I was crazy: families off on holiday coming to see a piece of the past, OAPs with nothing better to do than pretend the world was still like it was back then, Tory snobs, but I didn't care. They can all hang for all I cared, they've not spent the past two hours thinking they're dead. I was running so hard I didn't even notice that I'd not seen a single one of these specimens.

Over a bridge, past some gardeners, (cute that they made them dress up in regency clothing), round a corner, into the front courtyard, (there must be an information point round here somewhere). That must be the front door! Sanctuary!

I burst through the front door, out of breath, but never having been so relieved in all my life.

"Please...pant...I'm sorry...pant...I just need a minute to...pant."

An old woman was coming towards me. She had the best costume of the lot on. Must be the Site Manager I assured myself, she'll know what to do.

"Good Lord!" I heard her exclaim. "Sarah, go make up a hot bath quickly. And have some fresh clothes laid out! Quick girl, quick, we need to get her safe and upstairs as soon as possible. Come with me Ma'am, we'll get you sorted out right away. No don't try and say anything yet, all that matters is that your here and your safe."

Which all seemed very reasonable to me.

* * *

I started to suspect things mightn't be quite right when we got upstairs. For one thing, the bath wasn't a bath, it was a tin tub. For another, I'm pretty such this old woman kept calling me Mrs. Darcy, and as I'd never seen her before, I doubt my it was something my Mother had put her up to. In any case, no friend of my Mother's would start unbuttoning my shirt, no matter how ill-fitting it was.

"No, I'm fine honestly. Thank you, so much for this, but I'll be okay now. I can take care of myself, I'm sure you have other things you need to get sorted. I'll be out of your way in half an hour I promise."

She looked as if I'd just slapped her in the face. "But Mrs. Darcy!" (Ha! See, told you, I'm not crazy!!). "I can't leave you Ma'am. Oh whatever has happened to you? Was it gypsies? Well these certainly look like gypsy clothes. At least we should be thankful they didn't leave you with nothing. Oh my dear and they cut your hair all off too! It's a wonder you managed to get back here alive."

"Gypsies? There, there were no gypsies. There was a bloody great big bus I think but I'm not even sure of that anymore."

The old woman's hands flew to her mouth. Sarah dropped the jug of water she had been pouring into the _tin tub_. They could have been six and I've just told them Father Christmas doesn't exist for the look on their faces.

So there I was, stood in my pants and bra, with two disbelieving six year olds, neither one having noticed the broken jug. Well that was just poor house management. I bent down to pick up the pieces, "Here, let me help you with that." Another sharp intake of breath: the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either.

I looked down at the fragments of broken jug in my hand. Suddenly all I wanted in all the world was to see Will, to have him hold me and tell me I wasn't going mad, I was perfectly sane and that he loves me.

"I think maybe I should go." I said, handing the girl the piece and throwing on my shirt and shorts, (to Hell with the boots). That seemed to elicit some response from the other woman.

"But...but Mrs. Darcy!"

I would have corrected her on that point, if I'd have heard her, but I'm afraid my attention was focused entirely elsewhere, as the second I opened the door I found myself face to face with a chest I'd recognise anywhere, no matter how mad the world had gone.

"Will?!"

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Authors are quite proud creatures: we're proud of our characters, we're proud of our plots, we're proud of our writing. So please, don't steal any of them. I write this as a homage to Miss Austen, but I give her full credit for everything. I hope if she were alive and well today she would like what I've done with her creations.

This plot though I claim as my own. If you want to do something similar please, go ahead, but no carbon copies okay? If I could be cheeky and ask for ancknowledgment ,I will hold no resentment towards anyone doing anything of a like ilk. If you insist on simply coping though...well, I'm afriad I will have to tell on you. And then you will find out that I am more than just Lizzy like in name.


	2. The Devil Wears Prada

Elizabeth Darcy awoke much earlier than usual on the morning of the 6th July. If she was being honest with herself she hadn't really been asleep enough to merit a waking up. Mr. Darcy had been away on business for the past two days and, though she didn't like to admit it, Lizzy missed him much more than was either respectable or she supposed particularly healthy. Still, she had never been one to indulge is self-pity, and she certainly wasn't going to start now. There was an Estate to be run, families to be visited, local matters to be attended, all of which made her feel much better as they reminded her that her husband trusted her enough to leave her the duties most men would entrust to their stewards, not wives. That his wife was not like most other gentlemen's wives was something Mr. Darcy would often point out, and not without a fair bit of relish. Even so she missed him, but he would be home by dinner, and Lizzy was determined to have the best summer spread out ready for him when he got back.

Deciding she had better things to do than lounge about in bed she was soon up, attended too and ready to start the day. The day would start, as always, with a meeting with Mrs. Reynolds, then she would have to consult Cook as to how the table would be laid for dinner and then...But oh, Lizzy sighed, as she looked out over the grounds of Pemberley, it was such a lovely day and she would dearly love a walk. Maybe Georgiana could be dragged away from her pianoforte for half an hour for a turn about the garden. It wouldn't be much but it would be something.

Actually, now that Lizzy thought about it, there didn't seem to be any evidence of piano playing going on, which was most strange. In fact, the house was almost deadly quiet. There was strange and then there was downright odd, and Pemberley without music in the morning was just downright odd. Mrs. Reynolds could wait, if Georgiana wasn't playing she was most likely upset, and whatever had upset her was going to have Elizabeth to answer to.

Fortunately for anything that might have upset Miss Darcy, she wasn't upset, otherwise it would have not lived to tell the tale. Lizzy walked into the summer parlour and did in fact find Georgiana perfectly happy, reading, not playing. In the six months that Lizzy had truly known her as a sister, she had never supposed Georgiana to be a great reader. She was a very clever young woman yes, but she was more likely to be found at an instrument than in a library.

Standing in the doorway Lizzy gently clear her throat. It did the trick: Miss Darcy spun round, and said in a bit of a panic, "Elizabeth!"

"Yes?" Lizzy answered, looking down at the book that had just come to rest by her feet. Miss Darcy had thought she had done an admirable job of hiding it under the couch. What she seemed to have forgotten was that if you fling an object, and said object doesn't have anything to stop its momentum, the object will continue to be flung until it feels inclined to stop. This object felt inclined to stop at Elizabeth's feet, and Georgiana felt inclined to turn bright red.

"Oh please don't tell my Brother!"

Lizzy picked up the book: Paradise Lost. "And why not?"

Georgiana looked at her, "It is hardly suitable reading material for a...a...I shouldn't be reading it."

Lizzy just smiled. "Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime, said then the lost Arch Angel. This the seat that we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom for that celestial light? Be it so, since He who now is Sovereign can dispose and bid what shall be right: farthest from Him is best whom reason hath equald, force hath made supreme above his equals. Farewell happy fields where joy for ever dwells: Hail horrors, hail infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell receive thy new possessor." She handed the book back.

"You know it?!"

"Where do you think my fascination with proud men began?"

Georgiana just giggled. "So I am safe."

"Perfectly so, what Darcy doesn't know can't hurt him."

This seemed to satisfy Georgiana who leapt straight back into her book. Lizzy had to smile: she certainly couldn't picture any of her sisters reading unsuitable material, Mary was too proper, and Lydia and Kitti were too dim. Yes, it was best she didn't tell Darcy about Georgiana little indiscretion because she knew exactly who would be cited as the bad influence. Still, she couldn't help but wonder at her new sister's particular choice of book.

"My cousin mentioned it at Easter." Miss Darcy looked up from her page to her sister. "I imagine you were wondering how I came about it. Fitzwilliam was talking about the war and he quoted something. I think he may have had a bit too much Easter cheer for he told me the source, and then made me promise never to go looking for it."

Lizzy smiled. "A promise you diligently kept."

"I only wanted to find the quote, but it is so good. I have not been able to put it down. I don't think it's fair, that men get to choose what books can and can't be read. I don't think it's fair at all."

"Maybe not, but if we poor women were allowed to read all the books we should like, where should we find the fun in breaking the rules?" That seemed to cheer Georgiana up a bit. Lizzy looked again at the beautiful day outside the window. 'Funny', she thought to herself, 'it has been almost a year since'...a memory struck her, one she was quite pleased to remember. Perhaps history would repeat itself?

"I am going to go for a quick walk before breakfast." She turned to Georgiana. "Would you like to come with me?"

"Oh no, I – I...The rebellion had just begun. I should like to see how it ends." Miss Darcy said.

"You know full well how it ends." Lizzy laughed, "but I shall leave you to your book. Have fun."

"I will!" The younger girl called back as Lizzy made her way from the parlour towards the great hall.

* * *

It really was a beautiful day, but as the distance between Pemberley House and its Mistress grew, so did Lizzy's understanding of her own folly. She was lucky enough that the Master of the house returned early to find her walking his grounds once: to ask for it twice was just plain pushy. It had been many weeks though since she had last been able to truly stretch her legs, and many more since she had done it alone. Maybe it was for this reason that she quickly upped her pace from a stroll to a march, and then from a march to an out and out run. She sailed own hillsides and over meadows, praying that no one saw her, but in her heart not really caring if they did. The Mistress of Pemberley wanted to run through the park, what was wrong with that? 

Lizzy ran and ran, relieved to find that her legs still worked as well as they had when she had been nothing more than a simple country girl, forgetting that in that case the problems of a country girl's legs were most likey still the problems of the Mistress of Pemberley's, that is to say, a tendency to find the only loose bit of floor and step on it full force. This problem reared its ugly head as she ran down on particularly steep bit of hill. One second Lizzy was on her feet, the next she was not.

She couldn't be certain, but she was pretty such that she banged her head on the way down. That at least would explain why the world went suddenly black. What it did not explain however was what she saw when the world returned to colour.

* * *

The first thing she noticed was the noise: noise like she had never heard before. A strange, roaring sound. And the voices. So many voices. She couldn't imagine enough people to make such a noise. One voice though stood out above all the rest. "You okay love?" 

Tentatively Lizzy opened her eyes. Staring back at her was a woman whose face was, to put it bluntly, orange. A woman was an orange face was asking her is _she_ was okay?

"Yes, yes, I'm fine. Thank you." But she didn't feel fine. The back of her head throbbed. And the noise. What was that noise?

The orange woman just nodded and carried on walking, obviously satisfied that Lizzy wasn't about to go and die on her. Well, not yet anyway. Carefully Lizzy got herself to her feet, and then felt like falling right back down on the ground. That noise she had been hearing, she had found the source. Right in front of her, no more than three feet away, where metal carriages. But there were no horses! They were just, moving by themselves. If there had been enough room she might have broke the habit of a lifetime and actually fainted, but that was just it, there was no room. So many people! And so many types of people. All dressed so, so what? Strangely? The men wearing jewellery, and the women hardly wearing anything at all! Did no one else notice? Did no one else care?

And that's when the thought struck her. The horrible, soul shattering thought. She was dead. And this, this was Hell. Maybe it was slightly lacking in the fire and brimstone department, but the air smelt so bad and everyone looked to angry. She had tripped and died and now she was damned all for time. 'Well, so be it!' she thought to herself. 'If this is what I get then fine! See if I care.' At least she didn't feel in any great amount of pain. And if she was down here, chances were everyone else she knew, bar Jane of course, would find their way down here eventually too. She just had to stick it out till one of them came along. But then if she was in Hell that meant she was dead...She was dead, and everyone else was still alive...'Darcy, what will he do? How will...I can't even remember the last thing I said to him. He's gone. I'll never see him...Oh Jane too. Jane, Papa. What can I do?'

At first she thought to cry. It seemed the only logical thing _to_ do. But if she started, would she ever stop? And how would it help, to make herself more miserable than she already was? Lizzy looked again at the people surrounding her. All busy, all on the move. 'Maybe that's what I should do?' She thought. 'Maybe if I just walk for long enough, I'll be able to find someway...' Out? No, the hope was too cruel. But maybe someone who could tell her what exactly was going on.

Steeling herself as best she could Lizzy set off down the road, pushing all thoughts of loved ones as far from her mind as she could, which admittedly wasn't that far, focusing instead on putting on foot in front of the other.

Now that she had excepted her lot she saw there were lots of points of interest in Hell. There were plenty of shops for example, which made sense as preachers always told you money was the root of all evil. Most of the women seemed to be wearing either trousers, or dresses so short they couldn't even pass as underslips, and she was sure she had seen more than two pairs of men holding hands. Nobody acknowledged anyone else around them, and most seemed to be talking to themselves, with their hand up to their ear, which she guessed must be the sort of madness one can expect from an eternity of torture. She would probably do it herself in a few centuries' time.

Oddly enough though no one looked in pain or tortured. In fact, most looked remarkably well. Lizzy had been walking about ten minutes down this street in the Underworld and had already seen more woman who looked better than even Jane than she had her entire life, which made her feel all the more less remarkable than usual. As she couldn't even let herself remember that Darcy thought her the most beautiful creature in the world she was very close to slipping back into melancholy, when a street sign caught her eye. It said simply "The Strand." Lizzy's heart leapt into her mouth. Hell had the same layout as London! Oh joy and bliss and bliss and joy. If she could just get to Bond Street, she would be able to find her way to the Darcy town house and then all would be well. She would wait there, forever if she had to, till Darcy came for found her, and then they could escape together, just like Orpheus and Eurydice but with a happier ending.

Lizzy felt good now: she had a mission. All the metal carriages and orange people in the Underworld couldn't stop her. She picked her way carefully, taking the quieter streets behind Regent Street and The Mall. She made good time, it can't have taken her more than twenty minutes to get from The Strand to Bond Street, and when she did, she breathed a deep, deep sigh of relief. The people may be different, but Bond Street looked the same as it ever had. So much so, she allowed herself to slow down for a bit, and admire all the articles in the shop windows. Some looked very strange, black boxes with numbers written all over, or moving pictures inside silver frames, but other she would recognise anywhere. Bags, shoes, jewels, dresses. Lizzy had a particular soft-spot of shiny, pretty things, even if she could never admit it to anyone ever, for obvious reasons both before and after marriage, but these were more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before in her life, or death, as it now stood. Diamonds as big as her thumb in beds of silver and gold. Shoes with heels made of glass. Bags with such pretty designs and colours, all she could do is coo over them. If this was Hell, Lizzy decided she had no regrets over life.

And then she saw the price tags. Her eye was caught by a beautiful golden broach, set with dazzling diamonds, and priced at...£5,975! That was half her husband's annual income, not to mention three times her father's. Oh cruel, cruel fate. So this was Hell after all. 'Still,' she reasoned, 'no reason why I can't look.' And look she did, in ever shop window for the whole of the street, never one not to indulge in a bit of harmless curiosity.

It was curiosity that eventually led her in to some of these shops. This one looked a bit like a haberdashery, but it was the most expensive haberdashery she had ever seen. 'P-rada, what a strange name to have.' She supposed it was possibly Dutch.

While Lizzy certainly hadn't hoped for pointy horned devils to be manning the shop, she was getting to the stage now where she would quite like to see one, if only for novelty's sake. Instead she got more orange people, girls actually, which was odd in itself.

As she was working out whether she could afford to have a closer look at a particularly pretty bag one of these orange girls came up to her and said, "Lizzy! So good to see you again! Another bonus I take it?"

"I – I'm sorry?" Was all Mrs. Darcy could muster. Again? She had never been here in her life. And to that end, she'd never met this person before, so right have they to call her Lizzy?

"I guess you don't have to wait for bonuses now that you've got your new fella though right? I'm surprised we've not seen you in here more. But you're hardly a WAG now are you? Still, you know where to send him come Christmas!"

This girl was possibly more annoying than Lydia. Elizabeth didn't have a new fella, and she didn't know what a WAG was but she was certainly not going to be associated with them. Maybe this was how the torment begins?

"I love your dress by the way. Very boho chic. You really need to get out of that paper on onto TV. You'd be great for the ten o'clock news! I might actually watch it then!"

Lizzy didn't know anything about 'TV', but she knew flattery when she heard it. Torment by flattery indeed!

"I'm sorry, I really can't stay and talk, I have to go." Lizzy did have to go, go now and go quick. Things were starting to get uncomfortable. The quicker she got to Darcy's townhouse the better. She turned on her heel and was about to walk straight out the shop when something on the counter caught her eye. It was The Times, but certainly not as she knew it. On the front was one of those lifelike pictures she had seen so many of since her death, but that wasn't what caught her eye. Underneath the big, bold title was something that shook her to the core. There was a tiny picture of a face she knew only too well, and a by-line that read: By Elizabeth Bennet.

* * *

_WAG: Wives and Girlfriends of footballers. Fashion-obsessed gold-diggers, or so we are led to believe_

* * *

**A/N:** Greetings all! First off thanks for all the great reviews of Chapter I: they make it all worthwhile :) So please, lots more okay?  
Secondly, just to explain the change in narrative style, don't worry I've not gone mad. I wanted to do a modern style for modern Lizzy, (so 1st person, conversational) and a more traditional style for original Lizzy, although I know it's hardly akin to Austen but at least the language has been cleaned up. I'm planning on playing around with this a bit in later chapters, so prizes for the person who spots it first!  
Lastly I've been able to knock these first two chapters off pretty quick, but I'm back in work this week so I'll probably slow down to one chapter a week. If it gets any slower than that please e-mail me like crazy and I'll start up again, promise.  
Thanks again and enjoy! PPG 


	3. Chapter II

I can still remember the first time I fell in love. I was seventeen, and he was in the year below me in school. He was smart, funny, devilishly handsome, I couldn't think of a more perfect person in all the world. There was just one problem: he didn't love me. This problem haunted me for the next twelve years of my life. No one else compared to him, but if I wasn't good enough for him, I wasn't good enough for anyone. And then there was Will.

Now please, don't for a second think it was love at first sight. It took many a drunken party, a one night stand, a punch in the face and a knocked up sister before I finally realised that the one thing I had wanted for just under half my life, was staring me right back in the face. Literally, as it happened, as we bumped into each other in a Starbucks in New York, (Starbucks has played a defining role in our relationship). I would do anything for him, even recite terrible love poems and that's saying something: and what's better, I think he would do the same for me. Which is why, in the middle of my world turning mad, there was only one person I wanted to see, and that person was him...Or so I thought.

* * *

"Will?!" I was so relieved just to see him, it didn't occur to me to ask how or why he was in the crazy period drama house from Hell. It didn't even occur to me, as I burst into tear on his chest, that he wasn't wearing a pinstripe suit and tie, but was in fact wearing a coat, shirt, waistcoat, pantaloons and cravat. But like I said, none of that even entered my head because, as he put his arms around me and softly stroked my hair he whispered, "Elizabeth." And I just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed.

Sometimes that's all a girl needs to sort herself out, a good sob. Other times she needs a stiff drink and, on very special occasions, she needs both. But I digress. Will held me close to him for a while, just stroking my head, letting me get all of my feelings off of my chest and onto his. Somewhere in the back of my mind I registered the sound of pouring water and I guess that same part of my mind decided that Sarah and the mad old pervert woman were once again filling up the tin tub excuse of a bath. After a time I stopped, wiped my face with my hands and tried to smile up at him, just to prove that actually I was completely fine and nothing bad had ever happened.

At least, I started to smile, until everything hit me, again. (Tiring this, always getting hit by things). I knew the face that I was staring up to, knew it better than my own, but the particulars were different. The hair was longer, not by much, but too long to have grown in just under two hours. William might be somewhat vain, but extensions are just far right out as far as he's concerned. The eyes also, they looked, how to say this, older but younger. Indulge my litotes: I didn't like it.

He read my discomfort like a book: "Take your bath and rest yourself. We can discuss everything when you are feeling better."

Suddenly the bath seemed wonderfully alluring, but the reason was somewhat less so. If I took the bath, it would be thirty minutes longer I could put off learning the truth and right now the truth didn't seem that appealing. It wouldn't do: I didn't get to the top of my game by shying away from the truth. Pandora was going to open her box, even if she did already know all the nasty things that were going to crawl out, (usually politicians, but that's a different story.)

I put on my best no-argument voice and said calmly, "No, I think we need to discuss things now. I mean I don't know about you but I'm certainly not going to feel better any time soon until I know what exactly is going on."

Then he did an odd thing, a very odd thing. His eyes quickly flicked over to Sarah and Pervert, then back to me and he said in a clipped voice: "Lizzy, I think you need to take your bath _first_, and rest, and we shall discuss matters later."

Was that...an order? No, it can't have been. Sure as Hell sounded like one though. No it's just me: I'm mad and I'm making stuff up. Even so, just because I'm mad doesn't mean he can go about telling me what to do.

"And _I_ think Will," (mature, reasonable voice), "that we need to have this discussion _now_ not later." I would have added 'so you can tell me what the fuck is going on', but behind again came, a gasp. Obviously this must be how people in crazy houses communicate because that's all those two had done since Sarah had dropped that bloody jug. It was laughable really, but the look on Will's face drove any merriness out of me. In fact, it made me want to go and hide behind a rather large sofa. I'd seen this look before, but only been given it once and on that occasion I was definitely in the right: here I wasn't so sure.

He stepped back and held the door open. "Very well, as you wish." I stepped out and he followed, and then proceeded to lead the way very assuredly though halls I had assumed none of us had ever passed though before.

* * *

I freely admit to being a Disney fanatic: as far as I'm concerned Beauty and the Beast beats Citizen Kane every time, no contest. Which is probably why, as I walked down these strange, strange halls, all I could think about was that scene, you know the one: Belle's just said she'll stay in return for her Father being set free and now the Beast is leading her through the halls of his palace to her room? It's right between 'Belle reprise' and 'Gaston'. No? Nevermind. The point is I had a feeling something bad was about to happen. I had a feeling I was about to _get it_, though God only knows why. Or maybe, just maybe this was all some sort of practical joke? Or the most elaborate proposal in the history of the planet, (Mum would certainly hope so)? Maybe everything would be fine and by teatime we would all be back to normal.

There was however a very noticeable flaw in this new found hope: put simply, Will wasn't this good an actor. Trust me, he can't even do accents, everything turns out Welsh. This Will, period drama Will, looked ticked, authentically ticked. But like I said, God only knows why.

At a rough estimate I'd say we must have passed through at least a hundred different corridors, (remember, that's only a rough estimate), before he finally stopped, opened a door and with a quick flick of the head, as good as forced me inside. I walked into a library. A very, _very_ big library. Had I not wanted to cry for so many other reasons right then, I might have cried for joy. But I'd had enough crying for that day, I was ready to move on to the next source of comfort.

Behind me a door shut and Will Darcy strode over to a desk in the middle of the room, and poured himself a drink from a decanter that was set upon it. Then he walked to the other side of the desk and sat himself down in a big oak chair. Bloody cheek!

I glared at him. "You could at least offer me a drink."

I think he was about to mount a protest, but it was far too late for that. Screw the glasses, after the day I'd been having: I picked up that decanter and chugged that lot there and then. Maybe it was the half bottle of brandy...whiskey...port? Well, whatever it was, I'm pretty sure it was what made me say, "You know if you wanted to break up with me you could have just done it over the phone like a normal person. You didn't have to convince me I was mad."

Well that shut him up I can tell you! The look on his face almost made the whole ordeal worthwhile. Of course though I couldn't just leave it at that could I. Couldn't let him have his say could I. Had to go on and rant didn't I.

"I must say though, the trick with the phones, very well done. Tell me, is it just my phone or has the whole area been plundered into some sort of telecommunications blind spot? That can't have been cheap. And the house: bravo! Really, super! How much did that cost? But I suppose all things become priceless when you can rid yourself of an 'over-opinionated, under-dressed, gossip columnist'!"

If he wanted a fight I was going to give him on, only, suddenly he didn't look like he wanted a fight. If anything, he looked like he wanted a sob too.

"Lizzy, what on Earth are you talking about?"

"I presume that is the reason for this whole charade? The silly hats and _tin tubs_! Unless of course this is all some elaborate fantasy you've been dreaming up, in which case you could have at least _informed_ me! Then I _might_ have been a bit more willing to participate!"

He didn't say anything. In truth, he didn't look like he was capable of saying anything. He just sat there, staring. Then I noticed something, something I'd never seen on the face of Will Darcy before, masked though it was: fear. He looked, scared. Well why should he be scared? He obviously has some clue as to what going on, which is more than can be said for me. Even so, I didn't like looking at his face when it was like that, it made me feel scared, and sad, and insecure. So I did what I often do when I feel those things, I channelled them into anger.

"Where are all the plugs?" I might as well have been trying to get blood from a stone. "The light bulbs then? Or radiators?" Still nothing. I huffed, "Fine." Getting down on my hands and knees I took a closer look at the skirting board. There was nothing: no sockets, not even any pipes. I stood up and looked out the window, noticing for the first time how, no matter how far off the horizon may have stretched, I could not see a single pylon. There wasn't even a telephone wire. And the sky: it was such a clear day, and yet I couldn't see a single airplane trail. I might have been okay: I might have reasoned it all off had I not at that moment taken a step back, knocking a book off a nearby stand and onto the floor. It fell open on the first page. The printing date read, 1813.

"I bought that for Georgiana while I was in London." He said behind me. "She suddenly seems very interested in modern poetry."

That's when I knew, without a shadow of a doubt: Georgie was Georgie, and she always had been. The only person she had ever been Georgiana to was her Dad, and that was the better part of ten years ago. Will never called her Georgiana, but then this wasn't Will was it.

I looked at him, "It's not modern. It's two hundred years ago."

* * *

If I had to choose between Death, Madness and Time Travel, I'd hitch in with H. G. Wells every time. But it's not possible really, is it? If all people needed to do to time travel was get hit by a London bus, Richard Branson would have made a fortune out of it years ago. When it came down to it though, what else could it be? I really didn't feel dead, I felt frightened and alone, but not dead. As for Madness, I'm sure the human brain can think up a lot of things, but my brain had no expert knowledge of 19th century manor houses with which to construct this! I felt too alive, and everything else around me felt too alive which could only leave me with...But why was Will here, different though he may be, it was still him.

In any case, he was looking at me like I was mad. What had I just said? Oh...Oh! They didn't still didn't still burn people as witches in the eighteen hundreds did they?! Did they even understand the concept of time travel? Oh God, they're going to exorcise me!

"I think I have to go."

"No Lizzy wait!" He caught my hand as I walked toward the door. God he felt just like him! "What has happened to you?"

If this was time travel, why was he here? Why did he know my name? Why did he look for all the world like he actually cared? Of course that's when I realised my mistake: if you're willing to buy into time travel, than parallel dimensions comes in at half price, which would certainly make thing a lot clearer.

"I don't-"

_BYE-BYE MISS AMERICAN PIE: DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE BUT THE LEVEE WAS DRY!_

A text! Oh thank the Lord and all his choirs of Angels! I'm saved! All will be well!!! Only it wasn't, was it. It was a reminder to pick up printer paper. Sometimes I truly hate myself. Of course, then I realised what I had done, I hated myself a bit more. You don't think, do you, about pulling your phone out your bag when it rings. It's a reflex. A reflex we have in the twenty-first century but for very obvious reasons, people in the nineteenth century don't have.

There I was, with nineteenth century, parallel universe Will Darcy stood less than a foot away from me, and I was staring at my iPhone, (the BlackBerry had an...accident,). To say he looked flabbergasted would be to say George Bush might not be overly intelligent: an understatement and then some.

"What in G-d's name is that?"

"It's an...iPhone."

"A what?!"

"Mr. Darcy," (I've read enough classical literature to know how to talk the lingo...I just never expected that I'd, you know, have to.) "I'm afraid we are going to have to sit down and have a very long, and somewhat confusing chat." And to his credit, he did just that.

* * *

"So what you are saying is that you had an accident."

"Yes, in 2008."

"And you woke up two hundred years in the past."

"Give or take a few."

"This is unbelievable." He scorned.

"Maybe, but it's my safest option. Whichever way you look at it I'm either a time traveller, a lunatic or I'm lying in a hospital in 2008 and none of this is real. What would you pick?"

"I would pick you coming to your senses Elizabeth!"

"Oh believe me I am very much with my senses! If I was any more with my senses they'd be strapping on a Johnny and taking me up the rear end. That's my fucking problem! If I was less with my fucking senses then I'd be a whole lot less sure about where the fuck I am. My _senses_ are working perfectly well thank-fucking-you!"

He did look too pleased. "Let's say then for a moment that your right. Let's say for a moment that I'm willing to believe this, farce." He took a step closer to me. "Where exactly does that leave my Lizzy?"

"I don't know. I hardly make a habit of travelling through space and time." Between us our voices could have frozen the Pacific. It reminded me too much of conversations my Will and me had had before we both _came to our senses_. You'd think I would have learned.

"What's your date of birth?"

"What?!"

"You want me to think you're an imposter you're going to have to prove it."

"I'd have thought the phone and the hair and the clothes would have been enough! But no, of course, I forgot, I'm dealing with a Darcy, even if they are just a **figment of my imagination!**"

"So you accept you're mad. Good we're making progress." God he gets me so mad! "Now maybe we can-"

"December 29th, 1979."

"What?"

"My date of birth: December 29th, 1979. Ten fifteen in the morning I think. Is that good enough or should I go on? I have one older sister and three younger. Mum and Dad don't exactly 'get on' but after spending so many years pretending to 'for the sake of the children' they're now too old and mad to even bother considering a divorce. We all went to Meryton Primary School, where Jane, my older sister now teaches, and then from there onto the local Comp, except for Mary, who got into Meryton Grammar and hasn't let us forget it since. I have four A-levels, although one of those is in General Studies so it doesn't really count, and then I went on to do English and Politics at Lancaster University where I got a first. Once I'd finished there I worked for the Liverpool Echo for a year and a half, the whole time pestering the editor of The Times so much that she eventually gave me a job in order to free up space in her Inbox. I now live in a single person flat in North East London and spend my days making lying scum-bags cack their pants! There, anything else I can add to that!?"

"No...no I think that will do."

"Well, good."

A pause, then: "So Jane teaches?"

"Yes...There's a Jane here too?"

"Yes."

"Oh." I suppose that makes sense. I wonder what she's like?

Another pause. "Do all women work then, in this world of yours?"

"Yes, well most. Even those who don't make a career out of it...(Paris Hilton, for one.)"

"That sounds...very _enlightened_." I couldn't say for sure how truthful that statement was, but at least we weren't shouting anymore, and it was probably as explicit an acceptance as I was going to get from a Darcy, parallel or not.

* * *

The more we spoke it out loud, the more sense it seemed to make, to me at least. I was from a world where it was 2008: I got hit by a bus and woke up in another world where it was 1813. In this 1813 world there was another Lizzy, who was married to her Will who, instead of being a media tycoon was a landed gentleman. She was nowhere to be found and I was here instead, complete with iPhone, stable-boy's hair and very short shorts. I couldn't say exactly where she was, but logic would make one presume Mrs. Darcy had found herself in London City Centre. For Mr. Darcy's, (as he shall be named to avoid any confusion), sake, I decided not to say how scary an experience that can be.

Mr. Darcy was, in all fairness, as reasonable and intelligent as I would expect to find any parallel knock-off of my original to be, once we got past the initial fireworks display. There were plenty of things we ought to have been discussing, of much more pressing importance than my iPhone, but quite frankly I was just savouring the respite and I think the same could be said for him.

"But what does it...do?" He asked limply, after having turned it over in his hands for the umpteenth time.

"Well, you can use it to call people-"

"Call people?"

"Yes. Like, erm, it enables you to have a conversation with someone, no matter how far away they how. And you can use it to store pho...pictures. And you already heard it play music."

"That was music?"

Well I laughed at that. Who wouldn't? I mean really! "Yes, that was music." I was quite enjoying being Apple's nineteenth century spokesperson, it stopped me from remembering I was in the nineteenth century. I smiled. "Here, let me show you." I slid my finger over the screen and waited.

"_I find a map and draw a straight line  
Over rivers, farms, and state lines,  
The distance from A to where you B  
It's only finger-lengths that I see.  
I touch the place  
Where I'd find your face  
My fingers in creases of distant dark places._

_I hang my coat up in the first bar  
There is no peace that I've found so far  
The laughter penetrates my silence  
As drunken men find flaws in science__.  
Their words mostly noises  
Ghosts with just voices  
Your words in my memory  
Are like music to me.  
_

_I'm miles from where you are,  
I lay down on the cold ground  
And I, I pray that something picks me up  
And sets me down in your warm arms__. _

After I have traveled so far  
We'd set the fire to the third bar  
We'd share each other like an island  
Until exhausted, close our eyelids." 

Snow Patrol? Of all the catalogue of music over the past two hundred years and it had to go and play Snow Patrol! It could have done The Beatles or Stones or Springsteen of Elvis, but no, it chose Snow Patrol: bloody Snow Patrol.

"Sorry." I mumbled. "That wasn't a particularly good example."

"But that's amazing! How could it – how did it do that?" Give Mr. Darcy his due, at least he wasn't asking how they managed to get the little man inside.

"Well," Oh this was tricky. "It's a bit like – You know when you play an instrument and you have the music on a sheet? The music is recorded, but it's just a visual representation, there's no sound. Well, this records the visual representation in a way, but it also has the ability to turn it into sound. You just need, a special type of music sheet. It not really a sheet, more of a file I guess, but it works the same...sort of."

He picked it up again. "And the pictures, you said it stores them as well. They come on these _files_ too?"

"Yes!" God he's intelligent, even when he is two hundred years out of date.

"Could I see?"

If I had been thinking I might have said no. But I wasn't thinking, I was too relieved to think. I slid my finger over the screen again and up came Christmas, 2007. There was Jane, and Dad and Mary and Kitti, even Aunt Bessie and Uncle Phil. I started doing that thing people always do when showing off pictures, pointed out every face and trying to explain in three seconds what exactly had been going on just before the snap was taken. But of course I was wasting my time: the places and objects may have been different, but Mr. Darcy recognised every one of the faces.

"At least if she is there, she won't be alone." He smiled, only slightly, but it was the first I had seen since I got here. And then he did something which made me want to smile too. He looked at me. "And neither will you."

Like I said, I would have smiled, I even started to, but then I caught sight of the last picture in the album. There wasn't anything left to follow it, so it just lingered there on the screen. It was me and Will, about two weeks before Christmas, night time on top of the Rockefeller. Behind I could just make out the blue of the Empire State. We both had Starbucks in our hands.

"Well," I said. "Maybe."


	4. London Calling

Lizzy read over the first few lines again.

'_Non-Dom Peers Face Outing: by Elizabeth Bennet.  
__Pressure on peers not resident in Britain for tax purposes increased sharply yesterday in advance of efforts to pass a law that would require them to pay up or leave the House of Lords.  
Last night John Knightly, the Justice Secretary, signalled that the Government would help moves to oust "non-dom" peers after reports that 40 members of the House of Lords with bank accounts in Liechtenstein are to be questioned by tax investigators.  
A spokesperson for Mr. Knightly indicated that..._'

"What does it all mean?" Lizzy asked the orange girl who had come to stand next to her.

"You'd be better telling me." The girl said. "You're the one who wrote it. I don't get politics one bit."

She had wrote it? Lizzy looked again at the name, and at the miniature portrait next it to. Yes, apparently she had. She hadn't been dead more than an hour, and she was already appearing in print. This was all most strange.

"Would you mind if I borrowed this, just for a bit?" She asked, looking at the orange girl.

"Er – sure, why not. But couldn't you just pick one up from work?"

"Work?"

"Yes, you know, seeing how you like work for them and all. They must have loads of copies lying about. Couldn't you just grab one of them?"

Work for The Times? Lizzy could hardly think it, let alone accept it. The whole idea was simply wrong, on many, many levels. For starters she was Dead, and pretty certain that that state exempted her from any work she may or may not have done. For another thing a woman working for an institution such as The Times? Needless to say not only was journalism the lowest form of literally expression, but it ranked with the Navy, Law or Church in being an exclusively male domain. Mrs. Godwin may have tried to change that view somewhat, but she was no more than an object of ridicule amongst most. And yet there was her face right next to her maiden name.

"No." She said eventually. "No I could not." And then: "Is this date right?"

"Well yeah, it's today's paper. You sure you're feeling alright?"

"And today is the 6th July, 2008?"

"Yeah."

"Huh." Was all Lizzy could think to say. She obviously had been dead a lot longer than she first thought. But if it was 2008, then, she reasoned, everyone else must be dead by now too, which made getting to the townhouse all the more important.

In between these two thoughts though there had been another. It had been so quick, so fluttering, that Lizzy had hardly had chance to register it, but it was there all the same: Maybe I'm not dead.

* * *

She headed out of the shop, paper still in hand. The streets where somewhat quieter now. If she had known better, Lizzy would have said that lunch hour was dead and gone, and that the workers were gone with it. But she didn't know better, she didn't know at all.

She walked up through Old Bold Street into New Bold Street and like it had always been, the change was only to be found with the name. Only now it wasn't seamstresses and tea shops that lined the street, or indeed carriages that owned the road. Instead it was...Lizzy couldn't even begin to say, and didn't really want to. All she wanted to do was reach Grosvenor Street and find out what had happened to her.

Accordingly she came to the junction where the two streets met. She would find the townhouse, no matter how altered, and she would wait. Wait for however long it would take. Or ask questions, lots of questions. Really what she would do depended on what she would find.

Lizzy took her turning and, despite knowing she was very foolish for do so, she felt a sudden wave of disappointment. Somewhere in her heart she had harboured the thought that Grosvenor Street, her London home, would be spared from the craziness that had inflicted the rest of the city. She had hoped that it would be as it was meant to be, as it was built to be, all those long years ago in 1725. If the paper she had in her hand was to be believed that was even longer ago now than it had been while she was alive. She had hoped to find the same spacious street she had spent her March and April in. To find the house she had lived in, she had danced in, she had loved in, she had lost her...

She found a Starbucks.

Of all the words a gentleman's daughter should not know only one came to Lizzy's mind as she stood in front of the building that had been her home. It was the worst one too, and yet strangely fitting so she decided to say it. She was damned anyway, what was the worst that could happen? She had been ignorant indeed for believing that in this Hell she would find any source of comfort, but still Elizabeth had hoped...but it was all in vain.

As she stood there, watching people who couldn't have been much older than herself wonder in and out of this 'tea shop', hands to ears or looped around another's waist, Elizabeth had half a mind to go in. Only to see what had become of her home obviously. She was not in any way interested in just how exactly these people managed to look so – happy, no interested in the slightest. But common sense got the better of her: she could hardly march in and start asking questions willy-nilly. She didn't even really know what she should be asking questions about.

A new plan started to form in her head. To the west she could just make out the greenery of trees. Was it possible the Grosvenor Square had managed to survive the upheaval the rest of London had suffered from? She wasn't willing to hope, but Elizabeth was prepared to go and have a look. There, maybe, she would find the constancy she needed and then she could have another go at reading her paper. Any answers she might find she was now sure lay in those pages.

She was in luck. Indeed, the first bit of luck she had had since she died. The Grosvenor Square park was still there, same as it had ever been, and at that moment it was all Lizzy cared about. If she had cared about anything else she might have noticed how different the buildings of Grosvenor Square looked, or how there were no Dukes or Lords to be seen. She may even have noticed the vast array of plants she had never seen before, not even in the finest gardens. But she didn't see any of this, because she simply did not care.

She didn't care so much in fact that, after taking a few more steps closer Elizabeth Darcy stopped, stared, and then sat down, legs crossed right in the middle of the pavement. All she wanted to do was look at it, look at it forever is possible. One step closer and for all she knew it could disappear in an eruption of fire and brimstone. No, she was just going to sit and admire and thank whatever Divine power she had to thank that this small piece of _her_ London was still here. She couldn't have been less concerned with the people who had to dodge her as they walked by, or with the huge, ugly building she was sat in front of. All she wanted to do was to sit and stare.

"Excuse me Miss, but I'm afraid you can't sit there."

Lizzy's head flew up. Towering above her was a bright yellow man, or at least a man with a bright yellow coat on, which was just a bit odd.

"I'm sorry?"

"Miss this is US territory, and if you refuse to leave when asked then I'm afraid I will have to arrest you under the anti-social behaviour act of 2003 and the crime and disorder act of 1998."

Had the policeman known just how short Lizzy's fuse had burnt, he may have let her continue to sit innocently outside of the Embassy of the United States in London, but he was not privy to that particular piece of information. What he was privy to however was the tirade of abuse that suddenly sprung from Mrs. Darcy's mouth: the policeman being nothing better than the son of a doggie's wife being the very least of it.

* * *

In an office on the Isle of Dogs, 771 feet in the air, William Darcy sat at his state of the art computer playing solitaire, as he had been doing for the past half hour. He had people to call, reports to be written and deals to be struck and, once he had just won this one last game, then he would stop. Honest. His mouse had just miraculously moved by itself to the 'new game' button when the telephone rang.

"Mr. Darcy?"

"Speaking."

"Oh wow! – I mean, sorry. I'll, er, I'll start again. My name is Hannah Steen, I'm the police psychologist at the Paddington Green Police station. I'm sorry to say there's been something of a, er, incident."

"Why? What's happened?"

"Nothing serious. Actually is it _kinda _serious, but not serious serious. It just, I've been speaking to Elizabeth Bennet and-"

"Ah. I'll be down straight away."

* * *

In all his years on this Earth, Will had never once believed that he would be hearing the words he was hearing now. Not after he'd finally given up on being an actor at the tender age of 16 anyway. And yet here he was, sat in a dingy little office in a police station in central west London, being told what he could only describe and unbelievable. Fucking unbelievable, but that was Lizzy's influence.

Sat across the desk from him was the startled-little-mouse of a woman, Hannah Steen. Hannah, bless her, had never once believed in all her years on this Earth, which weren't quite so many as Will's or indeed Lizzy's, that not only would she be sharing a room with one of the country's richest men, but that she would at the same time be telling him, with indisputable evidence, what she had once only considered to be her wildest dream. However tell him she did, twirling a golden lock of hair around her finger like she always did when she was nervous, and letting out a small squeak when he eventually said:

"You've got to be having a laugh. You can't seriously expect me to believe any of this."

He didn't shout it, or spit it or even make it sound sarcastic, never the less Hannah still wanted to hide behind her chair and cower.

"Well, er, yes, you see-"

"No." Said Mr. William Darcy. "I don't see."

"Oh...er...Do you need me to explain it again?"

"No, I do not need you to _explain it again._ I _want_ you to explain how you came to such a fucked up conclusion. Somehow I don't think the State pays you to indulge in science fiction fantasies!"

Will looked over to the young woman, girl, sitting across from him. She looked like she was about to burst into tears. Silently he chastised himself seeing how Lizzy, apparently, wasn't here to do it for him. Trying with all his might to appear friendly he sighed: "Maybe it would be best if you went through it again."

Hannah visibly brightened. "Okay let me just get, which book is it?" she said as she bounced over to her bookcase. "Ah yes, here we go. This is so great, I've never really been able to talk to someone about this so much! I mean, not great for you obviously but-"

"Just get on with it will you?" Will cut in. Friendly he could just about do, but patience was right out of the question.

"Oh yes, of course, sorry." Hannah squeaked again, hiding her nose in her book. "Right, erm, you see, nobody quite understands quantum theory-"

"That's a promising start."

"Well yes, er...It all started in the 1920s! Sorry, I'm a bit excited. Like I said nobody ever listened to me this much about - but that's important right now is it?"

"No."

"It all started in the 1920s," she nervously cleared her throat. "Back when we were trying to determine the behaviour of atoms and electrons and things like that. We know the rules that govern them are true because we can predict how atoms will behave but these rules also suggest that in the quantum world nothing is certain, like throwing a dice, you have a one in six chance of getting what you want. But this idea of chance also helps us to understand how computers and lasers and DNA work, so we can't just ignore it. This is where the multiverse or 'Many Worlds Interpretation' comes in. Worlds split every time we make a choice, so much so that there are simply billions of them, some subtly, some dramatically different. Imagine if John Calvin had become Pope!"

"I'd rather not."

"Yes, exactly - sorry, again...erm...So anyway these worlds exist side by side, either on top of each other or branching off like trees, completely unaware that the others exist. I did my dissertation on possible links between the multiverse and multiple personal disorder! But you probably don't want to know that did you? - No. The thing is, no one's ever been able to prove for definite that these other worlds exist because no one's ever been able to pass through them, that is until-"

"Until you rang me to inform me that you have an Elizabeth from the parallel universe sitting in one of your cells."

Hannah's face turned a very vivid shade of red. "Yes, that would be the until."

Will continued. "And so I ask you again, what makes you think I am going to believe any of this bull crap?"

It was now Hannah's turn to truly shine, she had to take it, no matter how intimidating the man sat in front of her was. He had unexpectedly thrown her a life line, one she was going to grab a hold of with all her force. Now if she could only hold onto her composure at the same time, all would be well.

She began: "When I first spoke to Miss Bennet, she – well, she asked me if she was dead. I told her no because, you know, she isn't. She then asked if this was really 2008 and I told her it was. I don't know, I just had a feeling she wasn't, like, insane or anything. She just kept asking all these questions which even an insane person would know the answer to. Like, what's a mobile phone or a plane or stuff like that. So I asked her where she was from and she starts going on about the eighteen hundreds. But I mean _really _going on about them, stuff even history people don't know. Just simple stuff like what happened yesterday. Started going on about all these people and that. Actually that's how I got to thinking I should call you, plus I read Cosmo so I sorta knew already. That must be dead weird that having your whole life on display – but anyway. The funny thing is, she got up to today, well, today 1813, and then just stopped. She didn't have a clue about the next two hundred years at all, and I'm talking basic stuff here. World wars and terrorist stuff.  
So I thought to myself how can a person know so much about the 5th of July, 1813 and nothing about Hitler? I mean the human brain can come up with an awful lot of stuff, but it needs stuff it already knows to work on, and she was describing just, so many things: just tiny little details that if she was in a world of her own her brain wouldn't bother putting in, because they wouldn't be important enough to think up. It's a bit like when you remember something, you only remember the most vivid parts of the memory, but most of the time you wouldn't remember what clothes other people were wearing or how many cars there were in the street or even people's faces because you wouldn't have been focusing on them. But she spoke about all these little details as if she had lived them everyday, like how I might describe my apartment.  
And then on top of that she couldn't work the TV. Or the computer, or even the phone. I know that sounds silly but these are things we just don't forget. Even if you have amnesia you remember how to ride a bike or switch on a radio because it's a completely different part of your brain. Okay, maybe in some extreme cases, but your brain would have to be pretty frazzled, and Elizabeth's just seems a bit confused. She said she'd never seen a packet of crisps before, and that's something even amnesia won't do to you.  
So I asked a few more questions, did a bit of research on some dates she gave me and then I started to think that maybe there was something a bit, stranger to this. I had it down as time travel first but that didn't explain why there was an Elizabeth Bennet here who seemed to have the exact same life only modernised, I looked on Facebook to check and stuff, which is when I suddenly realised it must be the multiverse."

It took Will a moment to realise she had stopped talking. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he hadn't even noticed the relative quiet settle in the little office. He looked over at Hannah, waiting patiently on the other side of the desk. She couldn't have been more than twenty five, probably only finished university last summer, and here she was trying to convince him that Lizzy, his Lizzy, was either flipping mental, or lost in some episode of the X-Files with only a Regency substitute to remember her by. Well, it could be one, the other, both or none as far as he cared, as long as the person telling him wasn't some child with too vivid an imagination.

"I think," he began, after deciding the best way to say what he had to say without causing the girl to burst into tears. "That it would be best for everyone if I took Elizabeth home now so that I can get a better idea of what is going on and if need be arrange any, _assistance_ she might need." He was about to add that Hannah herself might consider looking into some _assistance_ when his Sensible Aunty Voice told him it mightn't exactly be the best course of action, for now anyway. Chances were anyway that this was all some big misunderstanding: an undercover investigation into how the police treat those in their custody who they deem mentally unstable.�Which meant that when Lizzy found out Will had already paid her bail, he was going to be in for one hell of a bollocking. Yes, that would be it. Time travel indeed: Huh!

* * *

For the first time in what seemed like a life time Elizabeth knew where she was: she was in a prison cell. It didn't matter that she'd never been in one before, she instantly recognised the tiny room for what it was. Empty, small and with a huge iron door that was definitely locked. Her Mother had always told her that ladies never swore, but she never imagined a couple of colourful words would land her in prison. Maybe Mrs. Bennet was wiser than she appeared. No, more so than anything else that day that single thought led Lizzy to think she probably was mad. There was a small comfort in knowing that she was mad: at least she would no longer have to battle with what was left of the reasonable part of her brain. She should have known she was mad when that blonde woman started going on about 'parallel universes' and 'crisps'. In fact, she should have known she was mad when that blonde woman introduced herself as a doctor, but that was all as maybe. She was mad and there seemed to be very little she could do about it.

"I suppose being mad is better than being dead." She laughed to herself. "Now I am talking to myself, I must be mad. Well, not really talking more laughing. I'm laughing to myself. Haha! If I laugh it is so that I do not weep!...weep...weep."

And she did. Lizzy wept. She wept because she could no longer convince herself she would rather laugh. She wept because she was alone, she wept because she was scared. She wept because she didn't know where she was, and she wept because she no longer knew who she was. She wept because her whole world had been turned upside-down and she wept because, when the only person who could set her world right again walked through the heavy, iron door, all she could think to say to him was: "Your hair is shorter."

* * *

_Description of Grosverner Str. from: Robert Seymour, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, vol. II, 1735, p. 666._

* * *

**A/N:** Hello again all. Just a quick A/N to answer a couple of issues raised in some reviews about the last chapter. Firstly, I know Darcy got the time travel bit a tad quick, but if Will Shakespeare can get it in less than five minutes in Dr. Who, then Fitzwilliam Darcy can get in a similar amount of time here. If this was more of a drama I'd have put a bit more conflict into it, but there's going to be plenty of conflict anyway so I thought best to get it out the way so to speak so that the real fun can begin.  
Also, I have already thought about the difference in age between the two Lizzys, and all will be dealt with in good time.  
I know this chapter isn't great, but right now I just want to get the stuff typed, (my mind has a tendency to wonder). Once it's all finished I'll come back and polish everything up but for now enjoy the random silliness, and thanks for all the great reviews! 


	5. Chapter III

A long time ago, and yet somehow in the future there lived five sisters. The oldest sister was kind and beautiful and everything a person could ever possibly hope to be. The youngest sister was spoilt, obnoxious and had a size Double D chest. The younger sister followed wherever the youngest sister led. The middle sister was stuck up and looked down her extremely long nose at all the others. The older sister was clever and witty and had an ego as big as Jupiter, but was also bitter, cynical and an emotional fuckwit.

One of them left to go out into the big wide world; another stayed and commuted to the big wide world. One of them taught, one of them sold and one of them took phone calls by day and took her top off by night. The two eldest found homes of their own: the three youngest were brave or stupid enough to stay with their parents. They would all sit down together for Christmas dinner, complaining that one hadn't gotten the other exactly what she wanted, and then they would spend the next 364 days recovering from that ordeal, before they all had to be in the same room together again for the next Christmas.

So they lived for between twenty nine and nineteen years, depending on what order they popped out, until their Father turned sixty, and that's when it all changed.

My Mother had only bothered to tell me and Jane about the party a week in advance. Jane had to cancel lessons, I had to cancel a meeting in DC. We neither were too happy. As the evening wore on, and I'd had my bum pinched my Dr. Lucas for the eighth time, Jane's happiness, at least, started to improve. My Mother, blessed with maternal foresight, had booked the Netherfield Hotel for Dad's 60th. Dad's actual 60th was a month later, but "people are so very busy at that time of year darling, plus, I heard it from Sandra Lucas that the owner's son will be at that particular hotel that week, seeing how business is doing. Won't that be fun girls! A real life millionaire!" This 'real life millionaire' had soon bought Jane a drink and the two were stood chatting in a corner, the way that makes an emotional fuckwit like me want to pass their dinner. Charles 'Nice-but-Dim' Bingley was more than inclined to make Jane's evening as enjoyable as possible, his friend however, Mr. I-Don't-Quite-Remember-His-Name-Darling-But-Isn't-He-Handsome, was not so inclined to make mine. I was branded an 'over-opinionated, under-dressed, gossip columnist', drowned my sorrows by eating a whole tiramisu and then spent the rest of the evening being told by my Mother to stick my fingers down my throat and barf the whole thing up unless I want to end up looking like Charlotte Lucas.

I consoled myself that I would never have to see Mr. What's-His-Name again, and that Jane was going to marry a millionaire, but it was not to be. Through her contacts Charlotte sneaked me and Jane into a very exclusive club for our annual Dutch Courage Christmas Extravaganza, essential before the season of good will. Someone (cough Jane cough) had told Bingles we were going to be there, so they went and played 'the item' on a table for two, while me and Charlotte sang a sterling rendition of Lady Marmalade. It was well received by everyone in the bar if I do say so myself, everyone of course, apart from Bingles' sister Caroline and...

"'Will Darcy, Lizzie!"

"Ah thing yoo've hat too much too drink Lotti."

"It f-ing well is! Ah sure 'im ages ago at i meetin'. It's 'im!"

"That's our boss?"

"That's our boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' boss."

"Oh."

"Fuckin fit like."

"Yeah, shame ee's such a prick."

"Stuck up like one too."

"Fuckin yeah la."

To tell the truth, I don't really remember much of the rest of that night, which was a good thing, as it meant I had enough alcohol in my system to catch a train to Longbourne. Christmas morning came and for some reason God, Allah and Buddha only knows, Mother made us go to church: Lydia was sick in her handbag half way through Silent Night. Jane was given two tickets for a week in a Netherfield Health Spa off Mother: she said Jane could maybe take Lydia or Kitti with the other. I got a spade for my garden, despite living in a flat...

As luck would have it the week me and Jane spent in the health spa, Chuck Bingles just happened to be visiting. They spent the better part of a week in a Jacuzzi together, I spent the better part of a week hiding from my boss' boss' boss' boss' boss' boss in case he thought I should be working or, more pressingly, in case I told him that I thought _he_ should be working. And I found out he went to Cambridge: stuck up, snobby, capitalist bastard.

I got back to work to find the President's PA sniffing round our office for a PA of his very own. It was at that point I decided that any man with the name William was doomed from birth to be an obnoxious dick-wad. Fortunately the same couldn't be said for men named George, especially charming, passionate, excessively good looking politicians named George. What was even better was that men named George seemed to hate men named William as much as me. I didn't even mind that he was a Tory.

The best two week's worth of shags followed, when one day Jane called and said that Bingles, (who had become something of a permanent fixture), had invited us all to a house party he was throwing for some reason or another. Sounded fun. George couldn't make it, party meeting. Sounded not so fun.

Jane and Bingley showed their faces for about five minutes that night, and then presumably, literally, fucked off to one of the many bedrooms. Will Darcy actually managed to bring himself to talk to me although he didn't answer my questions as to why business man always feel it their right to chew people up and then spit them out, even old friends. After that Kitti got high, Mary called the police, Lydia stripped and I'm pretty sure Caroline Bingley pushed me into the pool, although I have no hard evidence. 

All I know is that I certainly wasn't drunk, because I remember perfectly what happened the following morning.

Bill Collins came to my desk and told me how lucky I was to be given the role of his PA. I told him he could shove it up his P.A, (pudding arse). I hadn't worked so hard all these years to get where I was today only to have it erased by some high and mighty Yank who thought that, just because he worked for Central Office, the sun shone out of his fucking arse. And no, I wasn't worried about upsetting the Lady President, I might as well add her to the list, the C.E.O was getting a bit lonely!

Long story short, Charlotte went instead. Fucking Charlotte.

* * *

Bad things, it is often said, come in threes. Charlotte packed her bags and moved to L.A, Meryton F.C lost to Derby County and slipped into the relegation zone, and Bingles dumped Jane. Actually, that's giving him too much credit. You see, he never bothered to inform her that she was dumped, he just suddenly was no longer there. In Beijing from what I heard on the wire, buying up half the Olympic Village.

The last week in March I found myself in L.A for the Pemberley Press Annual Awards. I remember the honour of having the Company President, Catherine De Berk, come over and explain to me just what exactly I had done wrong to only come runner-up, and how she knew exactly how to fix it. I asked how long it had been since she was a reporter, she told me not to be so stupid, she a reporter? She wouldn't sink so low! After that I got drunk, proper authentically fall-onto-the-floor-and-hold-on-for-dear-life drunk. Turns out I wasn't the only one, which goes someway to explaining the events of the following morning.

To say me and Will Darcy fought would be to say there was a minor misunderstanding in Europe between 1939 and 1945. Out of this 'minor misunderstanding' three bad things once again came: apparently Jane was a no good gold-digger, which is why Darcy had sent Bingles packing: it was okay to treat George Wickham like dirt because Will simply didn't like him: pissed or not, he loved me.

He loved me.

Somewhere over the Atlantic I received an e-mail. It wasn't an apology, he had no regrets, he was simply applying to my finely honed curiosity. Charles had been conned before, he didn't want to see him used again, no disrespect to Jane. Wickham had knocked up his little sister when she was only 16 and he was 29 and then denied the whole thing. I had the best bum either side of the Atlantic. Well, what was a girl to think?

The next few months dragged on far longer than they had any right to. March became April, April became May, and May decided to skip June altogether and head straight into July. I didn't see much of anyone during those long spring months. Charlotte was in L.A, Wickham was a paedophile and Jane had lost all the fun she had found over the winter. But it was more than just that, I suddenly found myself not wanting to keep much company, to put it simply, I didn't trust myself to come to the right conclusions. Silver lining was I was churning out about 400 words a minute. I was an emotional wreck, but I got a nice big bonus out of it. Even that though was a two edged sword, after I had, as good as literally, bitten the hand that feeds. In a moment of weakness I hacked into the company's annual expenditure, the claims and allowances of the members of the board and what not. Seeing how much a certain member of the board donated to charity ever year did not make me feel a whole lot better about myself. Seriously, it was enough to make even Princess Di look stingy.

July did come at last and I found myself once again Stateside: not L.A but N.Y this time. I love New York, it's hard to explain just how much. I've loved it since the first time I visited it, I was 19 and totally alone. That's how to do New York, alone, if you're me any way. Jane would have to stop and talk to ever beggar, Mary would complain about the mass commercialism, (despite working for a bank) and the fact that everyone was either trying to mug her or stab her, and as for Lydia and Kitti, they would most likely bankrupt the lot of us in one day, and then bitch about the fact they couldn't drink. No, after the last eight months Manhattan in the summer would be just what I needed. I could get lost in the frayed tempers, manicured villains, mainlined TV, Christian porn stars, genocidal nerds, greed, self-absorption, politics. Actually it's very hard to get lost in Manhattan, providing you can count, but more of that later. I repeat, New York in the summer would be good for me.

I was to cover a Mass Media and Politics convention; I could vent everything I needed to vent on the people who deserved being vented on the most. (Another digression, have you ever noticed how the word politics is made up of the words 'poly' meaning 'many' and 'ticks' meaning 'blood sucking parasites'?) So one evening, after having spent the whole of the afternoon biting my tongue till it was purple, I asked the Senator of Texas why she received more campaign contributions from large oil and gas corporations than any other member of Congress and did it have anything to do with the fact that, according to the League of Conservation Voters environmental scorecard, she received a rating of zero — the lowest possible score — in the 104th Congress? She answered by planting a fist in my jaw. Obviously I wasn't the only one having a bad time of things.

The fact that I was no obnoxious enough to incite politicians to violence may have worried me, had I not at that moment found myself picked up off and ground and as good as carried through the hordes of paparazzi, (bloody press), trying to get my picture. Most people see stars after suffering a head wound: I was seeing headlines. In any rate, it stopped me from seeing my rescuer until we were outside the building. And so I found myself in the middle of Greenwich Street with a bruised jaw and a red face and all I could think to say was. "Oh."

* * *

"Who was it?" Mr. Darcy asked, after I had given him a somewhat toned down version of the above. Up to that point I had been feeling quite pleased with myself in that 19th century library. Not only had watching Buffy for seven series finally paid off, by merit of being able to convince someone that I was actually from another plain of existence, but for the first time in a week I had remembered to put my iPhone charger, my – ahem – solar powered iPhone charger, in my bag. It was now sitting prettily on the open window ledge ensuring that, no matter what happened from this point onwards, I would have a decent soundtrack to do it to. Oh yes, I was feeling _quite_ smug. It didn't last.

For some reason I suddenly felt very self-conscious about saying Will's name out loud. Maybe the realisation that there were two, one who was mine, one who wasn't, and I couldn't lay claim on one with maybe doing so with the other? I settled for the rhetoric. "Can't you guess?"

"Yes," he seemed to sigh, probably lost in his own such thoughts. "I suppose I can. And so what happened next?"

"Not much," I bluffed. "We spent a few days together then something else came up. We didn't see each other again till December, which is when that," pointing to the iPhone, "was taken."

I glanced back at him. He looked like he was doing hard arithmetic, brow ever so slightly creased in concentration. I know; I've seen that look a thousand times. Finally, after apparently adding up the sum he said: "And Jane and Bingley, when did they get back together?"

WTF!? Sorry, what I meant - what I said was: "Well they didn't did they? I mean why would they? Bingles had his chance and he blew it, end of story."

"What do you mean 'he blew it'?" He scoffed. "Of course they got back together."

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realise you were the omnipotent narrator. Please, you continue the story of my life."

"There's no reason to take that tone."

"Oh but I think there is. Please, you tell me what happened."

"They got married."

Now it was my turn to scoff. "No they didn't they. Jane and Bingles married? A mean, Ha! Well and truly Ha! Jane might be too nice for her own good but even she wouldn't give that limp-wristed commitmentphobe another chance."

"Well maybe you can tell that to _Mrs_. Bingley next time you see her!"

"If I _do_ see _Mrs_. Bingley, you can rest assured I will!"

And then he shot me _that_ glare: that breath taking, blood freezing glare. "Let us hope then for everyone's sake that you do _not_."

"Believe me, if I have any say over it I _will _not."

He seemed to stop for a moment before continuing, matter-o-factly: "Do you make a habit then, of ruining relationships?"

"Only where I see fit." I shot back. "And in those cases, they're usually on their last legs anyway."

"And whose fault would that be?" He said, clearly assuming it was mine.

"In this case, men who don't know what the _fuck_ they're on about."

There it was: the school-boy mistake I shouldn't have made. If years at college had taught me anything, it's that nice girls in nice novels don't swear. Granted nice girls in nice TV programmes don't swear either but I wasn't in a TV programme now was I? For a fleeting second I hoped, dear God (I mean they couldn't even _write_ that!) how I hoped, that all my teachers were fundamentally flawed in this assumption and the swearing, especially bad f-word swearing, was actually seen, not only as acceptable, but as quite charming. The dark shadow that passed over Mr. Darcy's face told me this probably wasn't true.

"I will not pretend," he said in a clipped manner, "to have the _expertise_ in this – situation that you seem to have, but if you plan on staying you might want to at least _attempt_ curving your tongue."

"Oh make no mistake _Mr. Darcy_, I do not plan on staying." And so, in order to reinforce my statement, I left. With hindsight, walking out of that library maybe not have been the smartest thing I have ever done, but it was certainly smarter than walking out of the house, which I did a few moments later.

* * *

My strides became increasingly less purposeful the more I realised I didn't have a clue where I was going, or more to the point, what I would do when I got there. To say I was frantic would be an understatement: to say I wanted to just lie down on the ground and sob my little heart out no more so. My mind was once again trying to convince me that it was playing tricks. This was all just some horrible nightmare, one from which I would eventually wake up. Granted, I might wake up in an intensive care unit but anywhere was better than here, wherever here was.

As the crazy-period drama house faded further and further into the distance I knew, I _knew_ that I was acting foolish. No matter what had happened, at least there I had had _some_ connection to the real world, my real world but why – I couldn't work it out. Now that I was out here, away from that house, away from _him _it was easier to backtrack on myself. Time travel was just the stuff of sci-fi movies and teenage boy fantasies, and even more so in the case of parallel universes. But then why would my brain send me here? To a time I knew nothing about, to a time where seemingly everything I held dear was either fundamentally wrong, or had not even been thought up yet? More to the point, why would my brain send me to a place where Jane was married to Bingles?

When Bingley left Jane was, she was just so upset. She'd stopped eating, she didn't smile any more. Everything that made Jane Jane left with Charles Bingley. And then he came back, after months of nothing, he just waltzed back into her life expecting to be greeted with trumpets and fanfare. To be honest, I hadn't had faith in Jane to do the right thing when he eventually reared his stupid head, I thought she'd go back to him, either out of pity, or because she knew Mother would have a stroke if she did not. But she didn't. My Jane, my wonderful, strong, brave Jane told him to hop it. She told Mr. Charles Bingley, with his Hotel Empire and boyish good looks, that he had cut her too deep, and she had no desire to have the feeling repeated. She didn't – doesn't hate him, Jane's incapable of hate, that honour is reserved for me.

Jane and Bingley married? It couldn't be, and he had seemed so confident about it too, arrogant prick. Well if that's what the universe/my brain has thrown up for me, another proud Darcy than it can stuff it. I'm not going through that again, no way no how. I've had enough trouble with Darcies to last me a life time. I was looking forward to retirement from Darcy Baiting: fat chance it would appear. And the tone of his voice, that condescending tone – urg! – it makes my blood boil. And why's it his fucking business if I make it my fucking business to ruin relationships (not that I do)? Intolerable fuckwit! God, get me back to the future!

I've always found that I'm most determined to do something, when someone tells me not to/that I can't possibly manage it, and so I found one half of my brain telling me not to be so mean to Mr. Darcy as I've had form in that area before, and the other, larger (an impossibility if ever there was one), part of my brain telling the other half to 'shut the fuck up'. So for the next hour I thought of nothing more than how annoying Darcy/Will can be/is, which probably goes someway to explaining how I suddenly found myself very much lost. Hadn't I just been following the route I took this morning, only backwards? But then why did that tree look frighteningly unfamiliar, and probably more worrying, where did that village come from? In my mad ramblings it appeared I'd over shot myself and so on top of not knowing where I was, I now didn't know _where_ I was. A small English village though, chances were it would have a pub and that, to me, is as good an excuse as any to indulge in a bit of snooping. Maybe if I was _really_ lucky, I'd get hit by a coach and wake up back in 2008. Well, a person can dream can't they?

I did not get hit by a coach: the village hardy seemed big enough for a coach to pass through, let alone hit anyone. Of course the curse of a small village is that when something – odd, happens, _everyone_ knows about it. Much to my chagrin, I was that something odd. I don't know what I expected really, walking through a 19th century hamlet in just enough clothes to cover my assets, no shoes on my feet having foolishly left them in the crazy house. No wonder people were looking at me like _I_ was the village idiot, which I have to say, I kind of felt like I was. I will admit that the cat-call did surprise me a bit (and, if I'm being _really_ honest, made me want to sway my hips just a little bit more), but the general confused murmur and poorly hidden points did not. I was contemplating whether it would be worth holding my head high, more to hide the blush than anything, when one woman broke from the gathered crowd and came scuttling towards me.

"Oh you poor dear," she said as she wrapped her tattered shawl around me. "Come, let's get you inside away from all these nosey buggers."

"Thank you." I was all I could think to say back, although "_Finally_! Someone who's talking a bit of _sense_!" may have been a more accurate reflection of my feelings.

In no time at all I found myself sat inside a tiny parlour. The whole house was tiny really, it probably would have fitted inside crazy-library, but quite frankly I couldn't give a monkey's. It was cold and tatty and smelt ever so slightly of a RSPCA rescue shelter, and as I sat there with a warm cup of nettle tea and a tabby cat curled up in my lap, I decided it was the most wonderful place I had ever been. I was so happy I felt like crying. I mean I had tea for Jimminy's sake! Tea! Okay, it wasn't proper pour-milk-whilst-

letting-it-brew-in-the-teapot-for-five-minutes tea, but it was tea none the less. Tea, oh sweet merciful heaven, tea!

As I sat there savouring every sip my lady in shining armour came back into the room carrying an assortment of clothes. She smiled over at me: "Feeling any better?" I nodded like an idiot and then gulfed the whole lot. Laughing she said: "It's good to see no matter what's happened to you, you can still enjoy a nice cup of tea."

"Oh yes," I replied, thankful for the first sane bit of conversation I'd had all day. "Tea cures all."

For a moment I thought I had said something wrong, she gave me such a staring over. I looked down to my cup and then up again, unsure of what, if anything, I was meant to say. Before I could give myself too much of a hard a time though she suddenly spoke.

"I'm sorry Miss, it's terribly rude of me to stand here staring at you, especially when I should be getting you another nice cup of tea. It's just you look terribly familiar. Have we met before?"

"Erm, no – no I don't think so. It's – It's my first time in this – part of the world you see, so I – I don't think we have."

She replied with a smile: "Well then, I had best introduce myself. I am Mrs. Lucy Harrison."

"Miss er...Jane Eyre! Miss Jane Erye." Oh God...

"Very pleased to meet you Miss Eyre. Now then, you had best tell me exactly what has happened to put a poor woman like you in this state."

I'm from the future in a parallel universe. I was hit by and bus and woke up two hundred years in the past. The reason I look familiar is because parallel me is apparently Queen of the Manor and married to Mr. Obnoxious-Tory -

"Gypsies." I lied . "Gypsies."

"Oh you poor thing. And they took everything? But who were you with at the time. They must still be out there looking for you."

"No, no one else." Eep! "I'm – a travelling nun."

"Oh Lord, Sister!" She cried. "How could they? Please, you must tell me if there is anything you need."

"No, no thank you." I said, not feeling particularly good about myself. Obviously this woman's humanity far out-ranked my own. "I shall be on my way again as soon as possible. I must get to London to – er – rid it of vice!"

"I would expect nothing less." She smiled: I really am a rubbish human being as well as being an appallingly good liar. "But perhaps we should get you into something a bit more suitable first, don't you agree."

I said I did.

* * *

With every possible degree of kindness, Mrs. Lucy Harrison was not a small woman and, with every possible degree of modestly, I am not a particularly big woman. My bum I'll grant, and my boobs, but the bit in the middle is virtually none existent – makes it very hard to find clothes that fit. So, not wanting to break the habit (haha, habit, get it?) of a lifetime, I stepped out of Mrs. Harrison's little house wearing clothes which were too big in some ways, and too small in others, (she was not a particularly tall person either, Mrs. Harrison, all five foot of her). This though was not what was making my feel very uncomfortable. While she had been fitting me into her corset (an item of clothing I was not unfamiliar with, I'd just never worn one during daylight hours before. Or one that was white without frilly bits for that matter, but I digress,) she had been telling me about her children, all nine of them, about her Mother, all 80 years of her, and about her husband, who was away at sea. Mrs. Harrison hardly had enough money to feed and clothe her own, never mind a wayward nun. She should be receiving child benefit, job seekers allowance, _tax credits_: but of course, she isn't, because those things don't exist. Yet. And even when they do Mr. Obnoxious-Tory-Snob will want to take them away. God I hate him, hate him, hate him, hate him!

I gave her my ring. It wasn't terribly valuable, more sentimental, but the sapphire was genuine, I think, and the silver might be worth more now than it would have been two hundred years later. She wouldn't take it, I told her I wasn't leaving till she did. She asked how a travelling nun came across such a treasure. I told her I sang for it: she didn't get the reference.

I set off in the direction I presumed was South, looking the part and feeling the part, (I started singing The Hills Are Alive: don't blame me, it was the scenery.) Derbyshire to London, my C in geography told me it was about 250 miles. I know from past experience I can manage 15 miles a day if I really have to, which, you know, I felt I did, which would mean...erm...16.666 days walking, making my gym membership a hell of a waste of money. I trust my legs, more than any other part of my body. They may not be particularly pretty, but they always pull through when I need them. They'd see my through this, and if they didn't, I'd steal a horse or a goat or something... My plan was simple. Get to London, hope The Strand had been built by now and if so throw myself under some oncoming traffic. Worst that could happen is a few broken bones. I mean, surely a horse and cart can't do as much damage as a double-decker. If I didn't wake up in 2008 then I was simply going to have to invent the biro or lip gloss or whatever else I had in my handbag. See, simple.

But of course nothing is ever simple, is it? Five hours on the road, the sun had set, (I'd presumed wrong about the direction by the way), but it was still light, not to mention baking hot. My brilliant plan had failed to take in to account the need for food, water, a place to sleep, all of which I had managed to find in the Amazon but not in the nineteenth century Midlands. I had a twisted ankle, a bag full of useless junk like pens and make-up, not a clue where I was going, and I'd lost my iPhone. Harrison bitch must have stolen it. Bloody tax-dodging, benefit-stealing peasant. So you know what I did: I, a reasonable, sensible, twenty-first century woman did? I sat down on a rock at the side of the road and I sobbing my little, withered heart out. Well what else could I do - there was no booze.

* * *

It was dark by the time I felt the heavy material being thrown over me, and a pair of strong arms hoist me up. A gruff voice said: "You left this." He handed me my iPhone.

"Oh." A beat, and then: "Thank you. I have a habit of misplacing it."

"As often as you misplace yourself?"

"No." I laughed, despite myself. "No not quite _that_ often." I saw his feet shift: he was as awkward as me. "I'm sorry to be so much trouble."

"You always are – I mean, not _you_, her but -" He smiled slightly. "I would hazard a guess you are as well."

"I am sorry Mr. Darcy. I've lost my world, you've lost your wife. I would imagine for most, it is basically the same thing."

"Perhaps we should call a truce, at least until morning."

"I think that would be very wise."

We both smiled now, somewhat self-consciously, but a shared smile none the less. He helped me onto his horse and then stepped back, a slight frown having replaced the smiled. I simple grinned. "I know what you're going to say, but I really don't have a clue how to ride side-saddle."

* * *

**A/N: **Hi all, sorry for the long delay, I won't bore you with details. I've not even proof read this one so if it's full of mistakes please point them out and I'll try and get them sorted. Or ignore them, either way's good.  
I realise that this is probably not that interesting, to anyone, but I had the strangest experince at my mates house the other night. Playing pool, watching 2005 P+P with the sound off, listening to Jay Z. Seriously, you haven't lived until you've watched the first five minutes of 2005 P+P with 'Numb/Encore' playing. Trust me on this.  
To all my lovely reviewers thank you again, and to anyone who hasn't reviewed but is following this strange excuse for a tale, I find there is a strong link between how fast I write and how many reviews I get. As football fans (kinda) sing: Feed the Ego and she will write.


	6. Spaced Out

"Miss Steen, for the last time," came the exasperated droll of the secretary on the other end of the line, "Mr. Durham is far too busy to deal with any enquires you may have personally."

"Yes but-"

"If you have anything you wish to report please file in it a BA333 form like the rest of the forces and if it is of any significance _someone_ from the agency will contact you if they feel such a connection would be worthwhile."

"But you don't understand, I've-" Hannah may not have been the most able minded girl who ever lived, but even she recognised a dial tone when greeted with one. She sighed. All her life she had been waiting for an opportunity like this to arise, and now that it had, no one believed her. Not even the people who were _meant_ to believe her. For all the good it had done her she may as well have spent her whole life crying 'wolf'.

In the immediate though she had a more pressing matter. She knew, odd as it might sound, that the Miss Bennet currently occupying Cell 13 was not the Miss Bennet who was the bane of politicians and corrupt officials worldwide. Famous journalists know about the Cold War, or at the very least, they know how to operate a television: Cell 13 Miss Bennet knew neither of these things. So where had this new Miss Bennet come from? How had she managed to cross the boarders between dimensions? Was it possible there was a rift open somewhere in London, with people falling in and out of existences willy-nilly? If so how did they send them back, and retrieve the ones who should belong here? Perhaps more vital than any of these questions though, how was she going to convince Mr. Darcy that she wasn't mad?

She left herself no time to ponder this query: time would give her chance to remember how frightening Mr. Darcy had been, and she could ill afford to be frightened at this point. So, with no time, in no time Hannah found herself down stairs at the front reception desk where Will and Elizabeth stood, signing whatever had to be signed so that Miss Bennet, nee Mrs. Darcy, was not presented with an ASBO.

Elizabeth didn't have the strength to talk, she didn't even have the strength to question, which to her signified only sheer exhaustion. Why her husband kept signing her name as Elizabeth Bennet was beyond her, until she remembered that she was mad, and therefore probably imagining the whole thing. On the off chance that she wasn't mad she still couldn't manage the strength of mind to be inquisitive. With everything that had happened to this point she hadn't even noticed just how tired she was. Now that he was here though all she wanted to do was to lie in his arms and sleep, (again possibly somewhat ironic perhaps seeing how she may actually be dead and not mad, but in that case she reasoned she deserved to Rest in Peace). There would be time for questions later, for now a nod and a shake and the odd quizzical eyebrow was about all she could manage.

Will had just finished signing the bail release form when his ears were once again greeted with the voice that was fast becoming the most annoying he had ever heard, (which was no mean feat, considering the range of vocals he had to choose from).

"Miss Bennet, Mr. Darcy please wait-"

Upon hearing his name the receptionist sitting opposite gave Will the most cringe-worthy smile imaginable. It may not have been so bad had it not been accompanied by a pair of batting eyelids, and belonged to a fifty year old obese bald bloke. He wondered if Bill Gates ever had this problem. Thoroughly ticked he put the pen down, turned to Hannah and said in his most civil of uncivil voices: "Dr. Steen. I appreciate your help in this matter, up to a point, but I think it would be best for everyone's state of mind if you kept your mouth shut from this point on. I think we have heard more than enough."

"But-"

"Thank you."

Hannah bit her lip: suffice to say she had been silenced. But while Hannah silence may have been sweet music to Will's ears, Lizzie's was not. Experience had told him that when she was angry she shouted, but when she was really, really, really, really angry, she didn't say anything at all. And she hadn't said anything, at all, since she'd been out of that cell. There weren't many things Will Darcy was scared of, but a silent Elizabeth Bennet was one of them. Something told him he'd be sleeping on the couch tonight.

* * *

For her part, Elizabeth was relatively comfortable now, walking down the streets of this wrapped London. It was, it's true, full of everything strange, but in essence there were a lot of similarities between these streets and hers. The people occupied one part, the carriages another: the shops windows were full of needless items, and on the street corners young people gathered, giggling to themselves. The sun was still shining down, though the buildings did cast longer shadows. Perhaps things had finally taken a turn for the best, after all she was with the man she loved and she was surely going home. Actually, it was that 'surely' which was giving her any worry she may have had. Surely she was with the man she loved, even if he was acting a bit odd. Surely they were going home, even if home was full of strangely dressed people and stank of coffee. Surely she wasn't mad, or dead. Surely, this was just a dream?...The thought engrossed her, silenced her.

For his part, Will was frantically trying to form a defense.

"Your hair looks good longer. Did they, er, have to put extensions in for whatever it was you were doing...er...I think it looks nice, makes you look younger – I mean, not that you didn't look young before, it's just, well it looks...different..."

Perhaps more of a suicide mission. Lizzy arched an eyebrow, Will swallowed hard: he knew what was coming. Or did he?

"My hair's the same as always."

"Oh – it is?"

"Yes. It's yours that's different."

"Really? I – I hadn't noticed..."

"Where are we?"

"I think we've just turned into Edgware."

"This isn't Edgware."

"I think you'll find it – is." He turned to look at her, only to find her staring right at him, face a cocktail of determination, and fear. "Lizzy what's, wrong?"

"Perhaps you should tell me?! You're the one who seems to know everything!" The fireworks had been set off. "Perhaps you can tell me how I went from walking in the Park to being in this – this idiotic city of the damned! Perhaps you can tell me what on Earth is going on!"

It was only through sheer good luck that Will didn't walk straight into the lamppost in front of him, although it would have provided a quick escape from whatever had just gone on. He stared over at Lizzy: the fireworks where there alright, but it was a different display. For one thing, where was the language? For another...an idiotic city of the damned? And the park? Which park, what – "What park? Hyde Park?"

"Pemberley Park!" She snapped. How could he not know?

"Pemberley...Park?"

"Yes!"

"Oh." Somewhere in the back of Will's mind an alarm bell went off. Maybe the Steen girl hadn't been completely wrong. Could Lizzy have banged her head? Annoyed one politician too many (again) and got decked (again)? Short-term amnesia? That would certainly explain –

"I think you mean Press?" He said helpfully.

"No, I'm pretty sure I mean Park. You of all people should know that!" _How can he be being so foolish?_ Lizzie thought_. Maybe he's gone as mad as everyone else_. This would explain the suit. But if Darcy couldn't even remember Pemberley...for the first time a new thought struck Lizzy, maybe she wasn't the one who was mad. Quite the contrary, maybe she was the only one still sane? In some ways that thought was even more depressing.

"I think we need to talk."

"Need to what?!"

Lizzy took a breath. She needed patience, patience on the level on Jane could achieve, but she needed to show him just how wrong the world was. She needed to make it right for him, for them again. And so, in her calmest voice she said: "I need you to stop. We need to go and talk, somewhere peaceful, somewhere quite."

And that's when it struck Will. This wasn't amnesia. It was a breakup.

"We," he spluttered, "we need to – talk?"

"Darcy." She cupped his face in her hands. "Come and sit down."

Just down the road she could see a public house, it had little benches and tables outside. It wasn't what she would usually pick, but she decided beggars could not be choosers. Taking Will's hand in hers, Lizzy guided him to an open seat. She was somewhat concerned by the pub's name, "The Edgware House", but as she reminded herself, Edg_e_ware only had shops on one side, the other ran along a bowling green and fields: they'd had a picnic there on a hot day in March when the parks had been too full. None of this was what it claimed to be.

Will sat down bemused. Innate arrogance was telling him that she couldn't possibly want to break up with him, but innate arrogance had landed him in trouble before so there really was no telling. And had she just called him Darcy? "Lizzy," he said as she sat herself primly down. "What's going on?"

"Darcy," Lizzy stopped for a moment: how to break this to him gently? "Hm. Darcy, I - I don't how to say this gently, so I'm simply going say it. You've gone mad."

"What?!"

"I'm sorry, but it's true. But it's not just you, it's everyone. Darcy – you're wearing a bag."

"Wh – wh –what the – I – I mean you of all –" Something in Will's brain short-circuited, the rest went into emergency mode. "It's a man bag!"

_Poor old Darcy, _Elizabeth thought, _it's worse than I thought. _"Of course it is darling, but don't you see, you're not right."

"I think you're a bit confused as to who is right and who isn't!"

"I know, I thought that myself at first. But Darcy, you're not yourself, your –"

"Okay will you just lay off with the _Darcy_ crap for one minute please, so we can have a proper discussion Bennet!?"

Perhaps if Will Darcy had been more open minded he would have put more stock in Hannah Steen's theory, but he was not. And so, stubbornly, he held onto the belief that the Lizzy in front of him was the Lizzy who could swear like a sailor, drink like a Russian and fight like both, which is why when he looked at the Lizzy in front of him, lips quivering, eyes watering, he said with all the tact of a stampeding rhinoceros, "What a piss take. Well if you think I'm gonna fall for the fuckin water works you've got another thing coming."

Perhaps it was the heat, the crowds or the fact that her stay suddenly felt much tighter than it ever had before. Or perhaps it was the fact that she had just heard her beloved husband use language she couldn't even imagine George Wickham using. Whatever it was, it caused Lizzy to do something she had sworn a long time ago she would never do, not if she could help it. It wasn't cry, she could shed a few tears every now and again without too much loss of face. No, it was something she had never, ever done before. She fainted.

* * *

The sensible part of her brain was telling her not open her eyes. It wouldn't be worth it, it was saying, you're perfectly safe here in the dark. The curious part of her brain though was wondering what on earth that constant beeping was. It was so rhythmical, almost like the beat to a dance. She couldn't possibly be in a dance hall, although there was a general din which suggested a lot of people. The curious part of her brain was being stubborn: it was used to being listened to. _Maybe if I just opened my eyes for a second, just the get my bearings? No one would even see_. Just for a second then, she would lift her eyes and then close them tight again before anyone even noticed. So she did.

"Lizzy! You're awake!"

She felt two arms fly around her and squeeze her so tight, Lizzie almost had to gasp for air. If the telltale voice hadn't told her who it was then the telltale hug certainly did. "Georgiana." She smiled into the young girl's blonde hair, shorter too: obviously she was still in the asylum world.

Georgiana pulled back. She looked slightly older to Elizabeth, how she pictured her to look in about five years time but all the youthful joy was still there.

"Oh I'm so glad you woke up while I was here. Will was all like 'she'll never wake up with you hovering over her' but I told him to shut up as everyone knows women make better carers than men and besides he was hovering so he could hardly talk! You know he didn't even tell me they'd taken you to hospital. He just said you weren't well, I had to squeeze it out of him but you know what he's like, always making a molehill out of a mountain. I wish he'd panic just for once but I guess that's Will. You're hair looks beautiful by the way. Oh and what was it like fainting? I did it once but I think I was only about 5 so I can't remember and –"

Georgiana clammed her mouth shut and turned a rather unbecoming shade of red as a nurse walked over to Lizzy's section of the ward, her innate shyness kicking in. If nothing else, Lizzy reasoned, at least she's the same.

The nurse came over, read a few vitals, asked a few general and indifferent questions, and all the time Lizzy stared at the room around her while Georgiana pulled on the string of her vest. The room was far and away the strangest Lizzy had ever seen, which was some achievement considering the past few hours. There were beds along each wall and each one contained someone who was – well, Lizzy could only describe it as 'hooked' to the strange boxes stood next to the beds. She looked down to her own chest, and then to her own box. That's where the beeping was coming from but she read in fascination: heart rate. The beeping was her heart beat! Of course, she could feel it now, the rhythm. The machine was making music from her heart!

"Oh brave new world that has such _devices_ in it..."

Georgiana looked over at her, slight confused. "Isn't that a book?"

"Shakespeare, The Tempest. Georgiana," if there was one person Lizzy could guarantee who would give a plain, simple answer to the best of her knowledge and without any facades, it was Georgiana. "Where exactly are we?"

"I think this is the Royal Infirmary Hospital, though I'm not exactly sure."

"And, _when_ exactly are we?"

"It's July the 6th. Six seven oh eight. At least I think it's the 6th. Might be the 5th – Would you mind if I stuck the news on, just to see?"

Before Lizzy could say anything to the contrary Georgiana bent down over another box which stood at the end of her bed. Suddenly the box burst into colour, much like the one she had seen in the woman doctor's office. And with the colour came sound.

"It's Six o'clock on Monday the 6th of July. Today's headlines are..."

As Elizabeth watched the events of this mad world a new realisation finally dawned on her. On madness, whether it was collective or her own, could ever invent such a place, such people, such a time. No, this wasn't madness, and the beeping box to her side told her it wasn't death either. It was something else, something far more fanciful. For the first time that day Elizabeth realised the pure and simple truth, and found that it was neither pure nor simple.

While Lizzy lay in the ward contemplating what fate had thrown at her Will was engaged in a very similar trail of thought, although his led him to a somewhat different conclusion. For the second time that day he found himself sat in front, instead of behind a desk, and for the second time it was a desk belonging to a doctor. Doctor Milton possessed all the qualities a doctor should: grey hair, crumbled shirt and wizened eyes behind a thick pair of glasses, all qualities which ensured that Will was prepared to take him slightly more seriously than that Steen girl. These wizened eyes now skimmed the paper work in front of them before darting up to look straight across the desk. "And so say Elizabeth was acting strangely before the accident?" Dr. Milton asked.

"Not so much strangely as confused," was Will's honest answer. "I'd almost as amnesic. She recognised some things but not others –"

"Did she recognise you?"

"Well yes but –"

"And what about her family?"

"I think she may have said something about her older sister and possibly her mother."

"That would certainly rule out long-term memory lose then. Perhaps maybe short-term lose instead then –"

"But what could have caused it?" Will cut in, slightly tired of Dr. Milton's continued eagerness to cease the floor.

"A bump on the head perhaps," the good doctor continued. "Or perhaps PTSD. It may even be a form of repression. Tell me; has anything particularly traumatic ever happen to Elizabeth?"

Will tried to think. The truth was, he couldn't say with much certainty. Elizabeth wasn't particularly good at admitting something was troubling her. It worried him in fact that she was so good at getting the truth from him, but that getting any recognition of pain or hurt from her was like drawing blood from a stone.

"She's very insecure," he said. "Even if she doesn't act it. And she doesn't get on terribly well with her parents, well perhaps not her dad but certainly her mother. I don't think it's enough to drive her loopy though." Will was going to add that she had a tendency to use humour as a shield whenever she was scared, until he realised he was doing the exact same thing. The fact was he was scared: Lizzy may have been slightly quirky, which was precisely why he loved her, but the thought that she could be slipping into something altogether more serious – it didn't bear thinking about.

"Now that _is_ odd." The Doctor's voice snapped Will out of his dark thoughts.

"What's strange?" he said flatly.

"It's just, well. These blood samples, they're completely clear."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"I suppose in many ways yes but – you see, they are _completely_ clear, there's no trace of any detectable none natural substance in them. There's no trace of vaccines, medicine, not even paracetamol."

"What're you saying?"

"I'm saying that Elizabeth Bennet has never had a flu jab in her life."

"But that can't be," Will said. "Her Dad's a GP."

"Then I worry for his patients." Dr. Milton said simply. "Mr. Darcy I'm sorry but you partner has never taken any form of _modern_ medicine in her life."

There was something about the way Dr. Milton pronounced that word which gave Will cause to pause. He was getting more than a little annoyed by this seemingly reoccurring theme: he had thought the states services were a little more stable than his recent experiences had suggested. Political stances aside, Will was beginning to wonder whether there wasn't something to be said for a private health and police service, if they could at least keep the nutters away.

True to form, Dr. Milton took the other man's pause as an opportunity to say something else which had been puzzling him. "Mr. Darcy there is one other thing. Perhaps I shouldn't pry but, why _exactly_ was Miss Bennet wearing a corset when she was brought in?"

A man less trained in giving nothing away may have look somewhat surprised at this statement. Will just said, "No, perhaps you shouldn't," got up, and walked out.

While he walked down the various corridors to where a rather bemused Georgiana was trying to explain to an equally bemused Elizabeth how an aeroplane flew, Dr. Milton was frantically searching through his files to find a number he had been told, but never believed he would have reason, to call.

* * *

In her office Elspa Paris but down the phone and sighed: it was only Monday, something told her it was going to be a long week. She picked up the phone again and pressed the only button she needed to. "We've just had another one sir. The Royal Infirmary this time."

At the other end of the line her boss hummed and hared. "Two BA333s in one day. My that _is_ strange."

"A cause for conCERN perhaps?" Elspa couldn't help adding.

"Very witty Wilde."

"My names Paris," she said, a bit miffed.

"Quite. Send me the files as soon as they get in, understood."

"Yes sir."

"And Wilde, for the love of God read a book."

Mr. Durham put the phone. He looked out of his office over the darkening waters of the Thames and smiled a contented smile. Nothing for two months, and now two instances in one day. Perhaps events where indeed going to plan.

* * *

**A/N: **Yes, I know, it's very late: I'm a terrible person etc, etc. This chapter gave me far more trouble than it had any right too. I've got an overall plan though now which is more than could be said when I started. Don't worry, I'm not gonna delve too deep into all the sci-fi crap, I just want to concentrate on D+Ex2, but I need the jargon to give the story some sense of plot. Anyone interested in it might want to check out the CERN website. Hoping I don't sound too sad when I say it's actually really interesting stuff.

So after 4 weeks of work, 50 million cups of tea, about 50 imported Oreos and a research trip down to London, (both Lizzy's have a busy time ahead of them), I give you chapter 6. Sorry it took forever :)


	7. Chapter IV

Urg – I had the weirdest dream last night. There was this bus right and then all of a sudden – AHHHHH!

In case you're wondering, no, that wasn't the sound of me recreating the sound of me getting hit by a bus. Nor was it the sound of me realising that it wasn't all a dream. Put simply, it was the sound of me rolling over, falling out of a bed which is _way_ too high and onto a floor which is _way_ too hard, and thus, quite literally I'd like to think, crashing back down into reality. Reality sucks.

So it wasn't a dream. I should have known really. That whole 'and I woke up and it was all a dream' thing never holds with an audience, such a lame plot device. Actually, I'm kinda glad I woke up and found it wasn't all a dream. Imagine how depressing it would have been if it was all a dream. Imagine the _cliché_. So instead we begin day two of Lizzy Bennet's Mad Period Drama Adventure – I hope this day has outtakes...

* * *

So, like any sensible, straight thinking woman does when they find themselves waking up in a strange bedroom I picked myself up and dusted myself, all the while trying to remember how the jiminy-cricket I got there, (the room that is, not the period). I didn't feel hung over which ruled out getting drunk, which is how I usually find myself in strange bedrooms. Sense told me I must have fallen asleep when Will Clone came and got me. Yes, we were on his horse and then – blank. Hm. Sensibility told me falling asleep while riding with strange men was so _very_ Lydia.

Obviously I fell asleep and he's hoisted me to this...room. I felt so dignified. Bet I even snored a bit. Well, why should I have even cared? I didn't care, did? Oh I don't know: I just wanted to go home! I wanted my phone. I wanted happy phone memories of drunken nights and rowdy fights and music to listen to by candle light... But where _was_ my phone? In my bag. So where _was _my bag – and my clothes for that matter? And what on _Earth_ was I wearing? It looked like my Grandma's nightie I can tell you. It probably was my Grandma's nightie though, bearing in mind that it did snick of booze and those present a fire hazard. That's not to say I was happy about the situation though. For one thing, I certainly wasn't wearing it last night, which leads one into thinking how _d_idone get into one's grandma's nightie. Which in turn leads one to swear that if one's alternative universe other half has laid one never-done-a-days-work-in-their-life finger on one then one is going to have to clout _him_ back two hundred years. That no-good-randy-bast--

"Mrs. Darcy?"

One – I mean _I_ spun round and saw a – a what? A maid I presumed. Or the help, as Caroline Bingles would so ceremoniously say. I'm _this_ close to proving she does pay _the help_ minimum wage. At least I was until yesterday. Anyway Miss Maid was stood in one of the doors leading off from the room, her face awash with incredibility and perhaps the slightest hint of admiration. I have a worrying feeling I may not have been simply _thinking _about clouting Mr. Darcy...

"Mrs. Darcy, are you okay?"

Obviously by this point my foot was too jammed in my mouth for any sensible noise to come out, so I just nodded dumbly. She smiled sweetly. I did wonder at how old she is. She looked about my age but then I guessed they don't have oil-free moisturiser with added sun-block and anti-wrinkle cream 

technology in these parts. Actually, come to think of it oh poo: I'm going to dry up like a prune. No false tan either, which means milk-bottle legs all summer long.

"Very good then ma'am. I've prepared the bath ready for you. Which dress would you like to wear today?"

"Er-" Dress? Bath? Ah – the tin tub? That old chestnut. She looked at me and that's when it struck. I didn't even know her name. Well, I suppose _I _did but I'm not _I _am I?..My head hurts. Maybe I was hung over after all. "The blue one please. The light blue one?" I said with fingers-crossed.

She smiled one of those face brightening smile which makes normal, cynical people like me want to throw stuff at walls. "I think that will be lovely Ma'am." And off she hopped to the other room, with me in tow, and in that other room – my old friend the tin tub. Actually, it was bloody hot that morning and I suppose a bath is a bath at the end of the day, or start as it happened.

I stripped off as the maid turned her back, stepped in and –OH JIMINY FUCKING CHRIST THAT'S COLD!!

I've changed my mind: I think I preferred yesterday. It's ridiculous; no human being can withstand temperatures that extreme. It was fucking-freezing. Like that last scene in the Titanic, when Rose says to Jack she'll never let go, and then shoves him off the plank. Stupid bitch.

"Is everything alight, Mrs. Darcy?"

"Yes. Yes it's lovely thank you." She smiled again. Oh how I wished she'd stop. No one should be that happy. Ever.

Five minutes later I was stood smack bang in the middle of a second room, being rubbed dry by the happiest servant in the land. It was indecent happiness is what it was. Has two hundred years of Marxism done nothing to – oh wait...

She was humming some tune I didn't recognise, but it was very pretty none the less. I wanted to know more about her, but it would seem a bit odd if I've know her for God knows how long to start asking her stupid questions like, oh say, her name! I hate not knowing stuff. And I hate being too cold and too hot at the same time. And I hated that room, and I hate that tin tub. And I hate 'Ma'am', and I _hate_ 'Mrs. Darcy.'

"Would you prefer a lighter shift today maybe Ma'am?"

"A lighter shift?...er...Yes okay - And let's have no more of this 'Ma'am' and 'Mrs. Darcy' nonsense okay? I mean, come on, we've known each other for what now?"

"About six months Ma –" She cut herself short. She looked a little confused to be honest, poor thing. "But then, pardon Ma'am but what should I call you?"

"Well," I says. "What do I call you?"

"Bessie, Ma'am." Man I'm good. Did I tell you I was good, because, not to put too fine a point on it but, I am g-_oo_-d.

"And why do I call you that?"

"Because it's my name Ma–"

"Then you should call me Elizabeth, for exactly the same reason."

"But Ma – Mrs. Elizabeth," she stuttered as she started to pull a petticoat over my head, (I've haven't worn one of those in _yonks_. Not since Lydia's christening I reckon. Waste of time _that_ turned out to be.) "What if someone says it's inappropriate?"

"Well then they'll have me to answer to won't they. Remember Bessie, all people are born equal."

"What does that mean?"

"Just, remember it." _I'm gonna start a revolution from my bedchambers. _By now she was tying the corset thing. Seriously, corsets, like _the best _wonder-bra ever! I mean to be fair I'm not stingy in that department but –wow! When I get home I'm going to wear corsets _all_ the time. When...

Bessie walked over to a chair on the other side of the room and held up this beautiful light blue dress that had been hung over it. It was lovely, perhaps not quite as Disney princess as I had been expecting, but I guess it was only about quarter to eight in the morning, not really princess time. I should have been drinking Starbucks by now...

Actually, speaking of shoulds, there's something I really _should_ have been wearing, which I definitely was not. "Er, Bess?" I started. How to put this delicately? "Be-before the dress, where – where are my knicks?"

She looked at me like I say speaking Greek, which I may very well have been. "Knicks?"

"Yes, er..." Oh Christ, what's the word? "You know, knickers. Pants? Undies?" She shook her head. How can they not have knicks! "Yesterday, I had a pair of...er... underbriefs on?"

"Oh, you mean the drawers! I put them in the laundry. Surely you don't want to wear _them_ do you." There was something in the way she said it, like it was the most ridiculous idea since the sound-proof microphone, made me realise I probably didn't stand much chance of finding Mrs. Darcy's secret stash of pants or of borrowing anyone else's for that matter. So everyone here is going commando. No wonder the Victorians were such prudes if their Grandparents were all running round with no knicks on. Randy buggers.

I stepped, somewhat self-consciously, into the blue dress. Foolishly I thought it might look nice. Foolishly I thought I might even look _pretty_. But oh no.

I turned my head to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and that's when the horror stuck. The utter terror. I could have cried. I could have _died_! But what was the point, there was nothing to be done about it. No moose, no shampoo and definitely no straighteners. The humidity, the frizz, the _waves_! The horror that was my hair!

I'll be honest with you: I looked like a Beatle in drag.

* * *

I am truly ashamed to say that I spent the next hour desperately trying to salvage my emotionally scarred hair, but alas it was all in vain. I still looked like Borris Johnson on a _bad_ hair day. Thoroughly ticked that I now had missed breakfast _and_ had stupid hair, I grabbed a ribbon, tried down the unruly mess of curls and stormed off in what can only be described as a bit of a huff.

Now remember yesterday when I stormed off and later decided it was a bit of a dumb idea, and you know how history has this annoying habit of repeating itself? Very annoying actually come to think of it. I mean you'd think people would learn the first time. People in this case being me. But people (me) are stupid, and they don't learn and so history repeats itself and I decided that walking around a ruddy great big house I knew abso-bloody-lutely nothing about in a bit of a huff probably wasn't a very smart idea. Or, put another way, I got lost. (Actually, slight detour, I didn't get Lost at all. I mean a desert island with polar bears on, who was tripping when they thought _that_ up?)

If I was going to be honest, I'd say it wasn't really a bad house to get lost in. In fact it was quite nice. But remember I was in a huff, and therefore determined to see the worst in everything and everyone. It was too light for a start off, I mean I could understand time travel if I'd ended up somewhere gothic, but this was just _nice_. Nothing ever happens in _nice _places. Nice places finish last. Everywhere was colour coordinated, and I've been on enough school trips to know that stately homes are _never_ colour coordinated. You're never actually meant to think 'oh, you know, this is okay. I wouldn't mind living here.' It was just wrong. And big. And tasteful. A great big tasteful set of wrongness.

Come to think of it, I probably looked a bit silly walking into a room, giving it the one over and then walking out again. The footmen probably though 'Mrs. Darcy's off her rocker'. (I did think about pretending to leave the room, only to burst back in, just to see if they sat down when they thought no one would catch them, hehehe.) But it wasn't my fault. No one told me where to go. Bessie girl just said "I hope you enjoy your breakfast" and then left me helpless with bird-nest hair. And Himself is notable only by absence.

Oh I've just had a thought! Maybe I'll find him and Mr. Darcy will in fact be Will Darcy, who has also fallen through the time-space vortex! We can live out the rest of our lives in the big, tasteful house of wrongness and wear lovely clothes and find some way to fix my hair and never have to work again for the rest of our lives! No more Christmases at the Bennets! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay! Yay-

The jubilation was short lived. I opened the umpteenth door and saw a Darcy sat down to what looked conspicuously like breakfast. It wasn't my Darcy, my Darcy wouldn't stand to attention when I entered the room (though with the correct training...). It was The Darcy. The Darcy doing a pretty good impression of any Darcy when they're disappointed. (The eyebrows raise ever so slightly and the mouth drops a bit, easily confused with surprised, which has the raised eyebrows but a flat mouth, easily confused with no emotion at all. We're talking millimetres here.)

"Yes, it's still me." I said more sombrely than I would have expected. "No need to look so glum." He said "sorry", and looked as if he may have actually meant it. Then: "Please, take a seat."

"Ta." I sat myself down at the little breakfast table. The food actually looked really good. Does it count as brecky though if it's almost ten o'clock? Brunch maybe? Well I was lost in these thoughts and The Darcy was obviously lost in his own. To be fair though mornings after are hard enough at 

the best of times, what you're meant to say to the future/past equivalent of your better half Devil only knows. (Remember how they couldn't print G-d in these times? See how I got round that one, aren't I clever.)

"Your hair looks far nicer today." It speaks! "More natural."

"Don't be so stupid," why did he have to mention the hair? "I look like John Lennon."

"Who's John Lennon?"

"What do you mean 'who's John Lennon?' He's John Lennon!"

"Evidently," said Mr. Darcy. "But that still doesn't answer who he is."

This is ridiculous. How do you explain John Lennon? "Okay, let's just, for the sake of sanity _pretend_ that you know who he is because quite frankly, I don't think I'll be able to look you in the eye again if you don't - Oo, bacon! I can't tell you how I've dreamed of bacon. Mmm, this looks so good." I forked a load onto me plate, Mr. Darcy rolled his eyes and a bloke in a bad wig standing behind the table cleared his throat, quiet rudely I reckon. "What's with the stiffs?"

"Do you _really_ need quite so much?"

"I haven't eaten since yesterday afternoon. So _yes_, I bloody well do need quite so much - OW!" I might be mistaken, but I'm sure I felt boot connect with my shin. "Oh come on! That's not even a swear word! I mean Ron Weasley says it."

"Ron Weasley?"

"Point taken."

A few more minutes of awkward silence. I chewed some bacon. It was good bacon. Then: "I did mean what I said before. Your hair does look much better curled. It looks less like a medieval stable boy's."

"You know what; can we not diss the hair please? It is _not _medieval stable boy's, okay, it's Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, got it. It's a _classic_!"

"Who's Liza Minnelli?"

"Oh...pish-posh!"

I can't be sure, but I think he may actually have smiled at that. Curse him. It's like trying to solve the bloody Enigma Code. No, no, scratch that. The Enigma Code would be easier to read!

A bit more silence followed. I mean, how do you top 'pish-posh'? I was beginning to have doubts over the authenticity of the bacon. Certainly it _looked_ like bacon. Would they eat pig this early in the morning? I truly do not know.

However, I had no doubts over the authenticity of the slender, blonde vision who popped her head around the doorframe and gingerly stepped in. Georgie! Georgie, Georgie! Looking Georgiesque! The hair was a bit longer (well it was bound to be wasn't it), and the face was a bit younger, and 

obviously the clothes but they go without saying. _But_, the point is –"Georgie!" I ran up and gave her a great-big-hug, which I don't really think she knew what to do with.

"Elizabeth...er...Good morning...I...er...Georgie?"

I could actually _feel_ a pair of dark blue moody eyes rolling behind me. Well stuff him.

"Oh _Georgiana_, they've got to _you _to. Come sit down. Let me get you some bacon. I was just telling your Brother it's absolutely divine!"

"Bacon?"

"Yes. Well, whatever it is. It's good and that's all that matters."

"Lizzy, are you sure you should be..."

"It's the heat." Said Mr. So-and-So. "It's gone to her head."

"Oh, pish-posh Darcy." I said in my best Mother accent. "The heat indeed! I'm just in a _good_ mood is all. What with being _ever_ so happy to be here and all. Don't be so cynical all the time. And don't scowl so much either. It does nothing for your complexion. The wind will change and you'll be stuck like that forever. And then people will think you're proud and haughty and disagreeable all the time, and you wouldn't want _that_ now would you?"

"Lizzy – are you sure you're okay? Your hair –"

"I'm as fine as can be expected Georgiana, honestly."

"It's just..." She said, pointing to the table, "you're using your desert knife on your kippers –"

"Kipper! That's why it doesn't taste like bacon – I mean...I mean –"

"It really is _ever_ so hot today." Said Himself. Well he doesn't help, sat there smouldering like that. Hm.

"The thing is you see," I said, ignoring him and turning to Georgie. "You see...It's what they're doing in the New World. Insane I know, but that's the way they're doing it. I swear pretty soon they won't even be _using_ knives. Barbaric really, but I thought best not to judge till I've given it a go."

I could see her turning the information over in her head. Poor Georgie, she's so sweet, she'd believe a leaf could dance if you out one inside tap-shoes. "So, they're really using their desert knives to cut fish?"

"Yes."

"Gosh...That _is_ barbaric."

I caught my own laughter in time to hear Darcy turn a very ungentlemanlike laugh into a very ungentlemanlike snort. He didn't seem too pleased afterwards, what with throwing down his napkin and demanding: "A word Elizabeth please, in the library."

Georgie gave me a knowing look. Not for the first time in the past 42 hours I had the feeling I was about to _get it_. And I thought laughter was a good thing.

* * *

So, back in the library. Happy times. I beginning to think I'm not just stuck in 1813, I'm stuck in 1813 and it's fucking Groundhog Day. This Lizzy is not a happy bunny. Let me fill you in, though you've probably already guessed. We both walk in, Darcy does his _Captain von Trapp_ impersonation, I expect him to pull out a whistle and inform me of my specific call. He asks me if I can "reframe from informing his younger sister about the imaginary eating behaviour of the separatist nation". I tell him I'm "ever so sorry but it wasn't my fault there where fifty billion focking knives on the table".

"Do you find it physically _impossible_ to be a lady?"

"Well I'll let _you_ be the judge of _that_!"

He gave me the one over and his eyes came to rest – oh the shame – on my hair. And then he grinned a grin which would have made even Satan look Angelic in comparison. "Yes."

I could have snorted. I would have, but why give Mr. Darcy the satisfaction. Instead I crossed my arms, straightened my back and met his gaze full on. If such a posture also happened to amplify my bosom, what of it. He seemed to take some notice of that, if the Sean Connery eyebrow was anything to go by.

"Right. Follow me." He said, walking _out _of the library.

"Right?! What do you mean 'right'?!" I shouted after him. "This is _wrong_! Wrong is what it is! Or left! Lefty-wrongy, wrongy-lefty. Darcy? Oi, Darcy!"

A combination of piss-poor shoes and a stupid dress meant I caught him somewhere in the main hall. "What are you doing?!"

"I'm teaching you how to ride."

"_What? _I _beg-your-pardon, sir_! I may not be a _lady_, but I'm not about to go down on some–"

"On a horse."

"Oh."

"If you plan on staying you'll need to know how to behave, or at the very least get about. You said last night you didn't know how to ride side-saddle. I suggest we begin by remedying that issue. Do you not agree?"

"...Yes."

"Good, then follow me."

In spite of myself, I did.

* * *

My head hurts. In fact my whole body hurts. Everything's gone dark again. I don't want to open my eyes: I'll wake up in the fucking fifteen-hundreds I just know it. "You know," I said, once the ringing stopped. "If you wanted rid of me you could have just kicked me out. You didn't have to try and kill me."

"You're the one who fell off the horse." Said Mr. Darcy, voice laced with smugness. I feel sick.

"What year is it?"

"1813."

"Still?"

"Afraid so."

Urg. Now I really _do_ feel sick. Forcing myself up I look to the horse, the man and then back again. "You're both evil."

"Perhaps, but you'll have to get used to that unless you plan on going everywhere by foot."

By which time I had managed to get _to_ my feet. "I'm a good walker."

"I don't doubt it." He seemed to pause for a minute. "...But even the best walker can't go everywhere on their own two feet." And with that he trounced off to get the devil mount. "Do you want to give it another go?"

"I told you," I said, eyeing up the horse. "That creature doesn't like me."

"Well would you like someone who'd just kicked _you_ in the stomach?" He had a point. I conceded. He hoisted me up and I decided I was into too bad a mood to worry about embarrassing proximity.

"Now this time, put your right leg in the U-shaped horn, _not_ the horse's ribs."

"What _U-shaped horn_?"

"_That_ U-shaped horn."

"Look," I said, half sat on a wayward horse, half sat on a wayward Darcy. "We're in a field. There's no one else around. I can't I just _please_ ride the horse like a normal person?"

"You mean like a man?"

Looking back, he probably meant 'like the way a man rides' instead of 'like a normal person: a man", which is what I _thought_ he meant. I know this doesn't _excuse_ kicking Mr. Darcy, like I did, but in my defence, he had told me not to kick the horse.

In fact this process of 'looking back' took place only about a second after my quite literal knee-jerk reaction. By which time Mr. Darcy was already on the floor, my aim in such matters having been perfected as a child. I'm not proud that I kicked Mr. Darcy in the knadgers when he was only trying to help me learn to ride a horse in the _correct_ manner, but if I may be so frank, he did have it coming.

"Oh Christ!" I said, making a dramatic leap off the horse. "I'm so, so sorry!"

"No, no. It's perfectly alright," he winced. "After all, why _wouldn't_ you kick me."

"I really didn't mean to. I'm so sorry. Can I do anything? Do you need ice!?"

He "hmphed" a bit and then plonked down on the floor. Anger management issues aside, it feels unreasonably good to see a Darcy, any Darcy, so fallen from grace. It probably didn't seem that way to him but, if you'll excuse the pun, a gal's gotta get her kicks in _this _day and age from somewhere.

We sat in silence for a while, I for once too embarrassed to say anything, until finally The Darcy took it upon himself to speak. "Where on Earth did you learn to kick like that?"

"What do you mean like that? Oh you mean - with that level of preciseness."

"Quite."

"Meh. We were always doing it in school. Every time we played kiss chase in fact. You pick out the boys you _don't _want chasing you and take them out in the first five minutes. Jane was always the best, surprisingly enough, she could keep a lad down for _hours_."

"Kiss...chase?"

"Oh, you know kiss chase. Where the boys chase the girls and when they catch 'em they give 'em a great-big-five-year-old kiss."

"I can't say I do."

"You've never played kiss chase."

"No."

"Well then you obviously never lived."

"So according to you," he said. "Life begins and ends with 'kiss chase'."

"Yes."

"What a very erudite philosophy."

"Yes, I suppose it is." I countered. "Certainly I think I played it at least as much when I was in uni as when I was five."

"It's nice to see that the education system has maintained its sense of decency."

"Decency? Bah! I don't know what you men tell your female-folk here, Mr. Darcy, but if you expect me to believe you spent your college years living the life of a vicar you've got another thing coming Sunshine."

"I refuse to discuss this any further." He said, winced, and then fell into a broody silence...

"I must have slept with about, 25 people while I was at university." Go on, guess who said that. I dares yah.

"25?!" He spluttered, and then a second later. "People?!"

"Well, Number 11 was a girl. But in our defence we were both pretty pissed – sorry, I mean _tipsy_."

The look on incredibility on his face was priceless. Absolutely priceless. And being the greedy little Missus that I am, I thought I might try and see how much more of this rare treasure I could obtain.

"I did a lot of things in uni actually. I learned to ballroom dance. Which might be handy, come to think of it. I can waltz. Waltzing and fencing, that was my fitness regime. Hey! I could be like a buccaneer!"

And there it was: the look of absolute disbelief. "You...you fence."

"Oh yes. Not done it for a while, to be fair, but I was pretty good in my day, if I do say so myself. When the Roses came around I made the captain of the York team cry. And he wasn't a small bloke either. What about you? Do you fence?"

"Well yes but –"

"That's great! We can have a practice. Let me just go find some sticks. Oh this will be _so_ much better than learning how to ride that stinking horse."

I had a feeling even then that in the 1800s it probably was considered _proper_ for a man and a woman to fence. But do you think I cared. No, thought not. And as luck would have it there just happened to be two perfectly sized sticks lying five minutes up the path. By the time I got back Mr. Darcy was back on his feet, but still looking none the happier.

"En garde!" I shouted, throwing him his stick.

"Miss Bennet, I don't know in _what_ circumstance you are used to in exhibiting behaviour like this, but I steadfastly refuse to – OW!"

"I did say 'en garde' and you left yourself fully open."

I'm sure he was about to mount a protest, but it never came. Instead it was cut off by the sound of a voice from the far side of the field calling simply: "She's got you there Cus."

* * *


	8. Chapter V

The first time I encountered Richard Fitzwilliam I was hiding in the boys' toilets. It's not what it seems, I just really, really had to go and the queue for the ladies was so long. It was the night of the PP Awards and, having lost out on my award to that stuck up, rat-arsed faced portrayer of filth Mary Oops-Sir-My-Fanny-Has-Just-Slipped-Onto-Your-Edward Crawford, I was not in the most jovial of moods. Bill Collins was all "I'm Catherine de Bourgh's P.A.", Charlotte was all "I'm P.A. to Catherine de Bough's P.A." and the grand lady herself was so high on people crawling up her arse she didn't seem to realise that actually "no Catherine, I do not want to join your brown nosed posse, so fuck off!" I didn't say that to her. Probably should have, but didn't. Anyway I digress.

By that point in the night I had had a _lot_ to drink. Not as much as I would go on to consume after the toilet incident but enough to lay the foundations. So, there I was sat in the boy's cubicle happily going about my Number One when I hear footsteps on the other side of the door.

"You okay? You look a little dizzy?"

"What about you? You're not even in focus."

My bloody froze. Will Darcy was having a tinkle not twelve feet away from where I was having a tinkle. What's more, he was obviously half way to being pissed himself. Oh if only I could tell of the astonishment, the wonder. And _then_ my report's nose set in. Who was the other dude? A secret lover maybe? Oh the perfection! That I, lowly Lizzy Bennet you be the one to reveal that Will Darcy goes around dogging. That would shut Crawford Bitch up – take my trophy away from me! How does Paris Hilton's sex life even compare to top secret government brides! She spelt with the judges, I just know it. Well, we'll see who wins _next_ year...but anyway...

Will's would-be lover laughed. "Haha, maybe not, but at least I can pass it off. You looked fucked."

"If only."

"Ah, so it's a woman. Anyone I know?"

"She's _nobody_."

"Nobody hey? So romantic. You know what Darce, sometimes I think even that stick up your ass has got a stick up its ass."

"Shut it Dick."

Now this left me in a very real dilemma. Either I had just heard some of the worst homo-erotic dirty talk _ever_, or I was not only tinkling not twelve feet away from Will Darcy, I was tinkling not twelve feet away from Dick Fitzwilliam, Pemberley Press' Executive Vice President and Head of  
Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs who, even inside a smelly toilet cubicle, sounded _really _hot.

I felt ill. I felt faint. I felt trapped. I felt like that time me and Lydia had some dodgy brownies in Amsterdam and ended up trapped in the bog for two hours. Only instead of giant bunnies keeping me locking inside it was corporate giants. And then it got _bad_.

"Seriously, you have to feed that thing or what?"

"_Shut _it."

"I'm just saying, because there's plenty of perfectly decent girls out there if you need someone to take your mind off someone. And boys for that matter. When in Rome."

"When are you _not_ in Rome?"

"When I'm in Romeo. But that Crawford is a fine bit of ass, for a British bird. No offence. And that Times chick. What's-her-face? Blondie red-head."

Over Christmas I did this thing with my hair. I kinda got a bit bored, so I did the Rogue from X-Men stripe. I really liked it actually, but about three days later on from this story I'm going I'm going to switch to Kiera Knightly in Atonement. Probably, in hindsight, to better symbolise my own atonement. Or to shut Mum up.

"You don't want to go near her." Said Will. Seriously, what had I _ever_ done to him?

"Oh really? And why's that?"

"The whole family are about as sane as a clown on crack. Bingley almost went for the older sister, until he saw sense."

"And how did that happen?"

"I told him to picture his girlfriend, picture her mother and then think ahead twenty years."

"And what did he do?"

"Moved to China."

I sat frozen. I'm sure the two of them carried on chatting for some time afterwards, and probably set a new world record for synchronised peeing, but I didn't hear them. Fifteen minutes later I emerged from my cubicle, nodded a greeting to a very confused executive and went and ordered a bottle of red.

* * *

After me and Will had had our _debate_, and then regroup, and then disaster, and then period apart, and then Starbucks, I got to know Dick quite a bit better. First impression not being entirely wrong, he is _something_ of a sex maniac, as long as it's got a pulse and all that, but he's a sex maniac whose heart is in the right place. Imagine my surprise to find Regency Dick so restrained, by which I mean English. Gone were the Yankee vowels, in was the 1950s BBC newsreader pronunciation. I'll find out Bingles is English next and then I'm afraid I will have to go put my head down a toilet. That I was measuring Dick's restraint on his accent, and by the fact that he kept his trouser on, probably means he wasn't actually being that restrained, at least by this day's standards. The Darcy seemed to roll his eyes a lot, in that "here we go again" kind of way. To be honest I didn't really know what was going on. I just smiled idiotically as I presumed nineteenth century wives as supposed too. Turns out Dick and Darce are cousin here. Who'd have thought it? Put a cap on one of the items on my Christmas list. Best laid plans of mice and men yadda yadda yadda. Workmates I'm down with, but cousins is just plain wrong.

Anyway, apart from quite rightly complimenting me on my superior fencing skills, 1813 Dick had another reason for being in that field. It seemed his mother had decided to host an importune dinner party. Poor Dick didn't even get chance to extend to invitation before Darcy said I was sick, which I backed with some very convincing hacks. Unfortunately my superior coughing skills were somewhat cancelled out by my superior fencing ones. Then Dick said something very Dick like and I could actually see Darcy's ears burning. It would have been so funny, if I had not been worried that Dick was about to get a stick to the face, (ah look, more terrible innuendo. My mind is so far in the gutter it could be a Hogarth painting). Wisely I feel, Dick left after that.

So, for the rest of the afternoon Darcy was desperately trying to think of a way to get us out of going to his aunt's party. I've found it easier if I simply refer to him as Darcy, and stop drawing comparisons with Will. Obviously there is a hypocrisy in still calling Dick Dick and Georgie Georige, but to be blunt, I wasn't screwing either of them. As far as I'm concerned now they're just two people who look remarkably similar who have remarkable similar friends. And this whole fiasco is just the result of Darcy having very clumsily lost his wife, and I having very clumsily lost my plane of existence.

He didn't seem to find my contribution to this escape plan very helpful, but I think he was just being too proud to admit that my idea of pushing him down the stairs was a bloody good one. After all, why break the habit of a life time?

At this point I could draw a comparison with Will and say that by eight o'clock that evening Darcy was behaving in true Darcy style by sitting in the coach scowering because he hadn't thought of a way to get his own way, but I'm not going to draw that comparison, because I'm better than that. I have no need to hark back to those early days of mine and Will's acquaintance when Bingles would drag him around all and sundry and he would look like he was about to clobber the first person who dared speak to him. I have no need to say that then, admittedly like now, I found him ravishingly attractive in spite of myself and sometimes, when I was really bored at work, felt like sending the smuttiest suggestion to his mail box possible just to see if I could get one of those God damn gorgeous eyebrows to cock up in that way that so made me want to get his real cock...but like I said, I am a better person than that.

So, we sat in that carriage me, Darcy and – ahem - _Georgiana_. We all sat _quietly_. I was suffering from the worst travel sickness anyone has ever suffered. Ever. Darcy, as said, was in a pit of hubris as deep as Hades and Georgiana well –

Will had told me that in the year after the incident with Wickham, Georgie had become very withdrawn. Frighteningly so. The termination hadn't helped – a bad reaction to the drugs. A nurse who threatened to blag to the papers – obviously forgetting who _owned_ the papers. That was the better part of three years ago now, and while Georgie can still be shy around pretty much anyone she doesn't know, amongst friends it's sometimes hard to shut her up. It's like all those thoughts she hadn't been brave enough to say suddenly come flooding out. Even in the six months I've known her, there's been a huge difference. I couldn't help but think – I'm not a dumb person, which hopefully you have realised by now - with so many similarities between this world and mine, it's certainly not outside the realms of possibility that something happened to this Georgiana too. Something the poor girl obviously hasn't had time to start recovering from yet. Not for the first time, I didn't envy my predecessor.

"That's a very pretty dress Georgiana." I said.

"Thank you," she replied, with feeling if not expression. Darcy shifted in his seat. It was going to be a long night.

* * *

If Pemberley House is the Pemberley Press of the nineteenth century, then Matlock is the Microsoft. An hour of Fitzwilliam Family History 101 with Darcy that afternoon had in no way prepared me for the test that was Matlock. For a start I fell out the coach, too busy gawping at the size of the thing. Maybe I've already soaked up a bit of family prejudice, but I don't think it was as nice as Pemberley.

Darcy picked me up and escorted me towards the door, not missing the chance to whisper "remember Kate" in my ear. Before, when we figured there was no way of getting out of Lady Matlock's dinner without committing a serious social faux paux, I told him not to worry, as I'd just act like one of the wives from Shakespeare. He suggested Kate, of shrew taming fame. I said I had more of a mind to play Ophelia. He looked _mad_.

We got in the house and were given the National Trust tour up to a room. I don't know _which_ room, for they seem to have many in this day and age. It may have been a sitting room, it may have been a lounge, it may even have been a somewhere-to-sit-before-you-go-stuff-yourself-with-food room. As I said, I don't know. I was about to ask Darcy which room it was, seeing how I was draped so trophy like on his arm – apparently a piggyback was off the agenda. Who knew? – when a woman who I swear was Joan Collins' twin greeted us with a "Darcy! Elizabeth! How good to see you both. Oh and Georgiana you're here too! How wonderful."

"We couldn't think of a decent excuse not to come." Was Darcy's reply. I stifled a laugh.

"Come now nephew," said a bloke who, for some strange reason, I presumed was Darcy's uncle. "You wouldn't have deprived us of your company now would you? And how are you Elizabeth? Richard told us you had something of a cough this morning."

Aw, I like Darcy's uncle. He's like a very rich Father Christmas. "I'm very well thank you sir." I said in my best posh-bird accent. "It was just a tickle."

"I am very glad to hear it. Come, come do sit down."

I'm sure I saw Darcy's eye twitch just a little bit sit down we did. Mercifully the conversation turned to the weather. Everyone – well almost – being happy to hedge their bets on how long the sun would last before the British summer rain started again, I decided to do a quick appraisal. There was Father Christmas and Joan Collins obviously, who must have been Mr. And Mrs. Matlock or whatever. Dick was there too, and I've watched enough Sharpe to know a Napoleonic war uniform when I see one, meaning Dick is an army man. The fact that Dick looks a lot like a young Sean Bean, and Darcy by which I mean Will by which I mean Darcy looks a lot like the lovechild of Christian Bale and Harrison Ford who just happened to get all his Fathers' good features meant for a second there, in that ever so splendid room I wasn't thinking about who's who, I was thinking about my aching ovaries. Of course it would be at this moment that some strange, and quite frankly plump woman, asked me "and what do you think about it Elizabeth?"

"I think..." What do I think? I can't tell her I'm thinking about the various uses for baby oil. I can't tell her this room really needs a TV. I can't get her I'm thinking 'who the fuck are you?' I can't tell her I suddenly have a horrible feeling I left the straighteners on when I left the house yesterday. "I think...If a person owns a piece of land do they just own the top or do they own it all the way down to the centre of the earth?"

There was a second of deafening silence. I suddenly remembered Thomas Hardy, where the bloke gets so fed up of his wife that he sellers her on a nineteenth century eBay. Oh God I'm going to get auctioned off! Darcy won't ask much, he'll just be happy to be rid of me. I'm going to end up living in a cattle shed!

Then Father Christmas started laughing. It was quite a sinister laugh actually, not very Christmas like at all, but it was better than the silence. "My what a fine thought. Never occurred to me. Darcy, you must look it up when you get back."

"Of course uncle." Darcy griped.

There was a block who looked a little bit older, and rather less attractive, than Dick who looked a little put out at Father Christmas' request of Darcy. I reckoned he was _the heir_. Matlock Junior, being a bit grumpy because Dad likes his cousin better. I've got this family so sussed.

It wasn't long after that when a man in a funny wig came in and told everyone "dinner was served". I don't know why, but I got the feeling Darcy was in a bad mood. My humming 'Be Our Guest; didn't seem to do much to cheer him up either. Joan Collins asked me what I was humming. I told her just a popular children's song from my neck of the woods. She asked if I would sing it for her after dinner. I said of course I would, and then set about getting her as drunk as possible so she wouldn't remember.

Everyone performed some funny little dance before sitting down at the dinner table, which was big, long, posh – look do you really need a description? Just go watch some Andrew Davis, you'll get the idea. I thought name cards would have been a good idea, so people knew where they were meant to sit, but of course everyone _did_ no where they were meant to sit – apart from me, who waited right to the last minute and then jumped – not literally mind – into the last available seat. Which just so happened to be next to Father Christmas. Plump woman gave me the evilest stare ever. I think she doesn't like me, and I wouldn't blame Me for not liking her. I was going to pull a tongue at her, but then came the starters and thus began the undoing of a life time of gym membership...

One of the things you learn quick and hard in my profession is that people are never what they seem. How I managed to get so far by taking people _exactly _as what they seem remains one of the great mysteries of life. But the point is, if someone seems too good to be true, they probably are. This applies to boyfriends as well as politicians. This also works the opposite way – people are never as bad as they seem. Many a time I have been at the meal or event or something and come across a politician whose policies actually, physically make my skin crawl. Gordon Brown say. Then, after ten minutes talking about football, I find myself thinking 'sure, this man is destroying civil liberties and therefore everything I hold dear in my country, but he's got a great knowledge of Meryton FC's back four. Maybe he's not so bad after all'. So it was that meal at Matlock.

For the first two courses I ate my way through veil and game, accomplishing the double feat of not throwing up and not talking. I even foregoed the offer Port and Sherry – until I realised there was 

nothing else apart from wine, then I regoed the Sherry. Father Christmas was being very polite. When I did talk I had the sense to steer him onto classical literature. He blagged away while plump lady – actual name Lady Bethany – gave me a whole new load of evils for being her father-in-law's favourite, and Darcy actually let himself look rather relieved. I would have preferred it if he had not been holding his breath since we entered the house, waiting for me to slip up, but I gained much satisfaction in proving him wrong.

"So Richard, tell us news from the continent." It was Viscount Matlock, he of sulk and envy.

"All good ever since the Russians saw sense. Bonaparte will be begging for mercy by this time next year."

"Next two years." Everyone turned to look at me. "Next two years," I said again, trying to find a footing. "It's only 1813 right? This won't be over until 1815..."

Colonel Dick was about to say something, but he was cut off by Darcy's sudden coughing fit. "Excuse me," he said at the end of it, giving me a quick glare.

Lord Matlock couldn't let it drop though. "Tell me Elizabeth, why do you think Bonnie will not fall for another two years. Surely the combined might of us and the Russians will be enough to squash him like the garlic clove he is."

"I just...do..."

"Of course, the cheese eating monkeys just don't seem to learn their lesson do they? No matter how many times we beat them down, they just keep struggling back up for more. How they could ever contemplate governing Europe when they can't even keep their own poor in check is beyond me. A punch of pansies the lot of them. That Louis, what an idiot. Trying to connect to the masses, and where did it get him. Not ahead that's for sure! Haha. That's the problem with 'the people', you can't trust them. Give them an inch and they'll rope you up be your neck. No respect, no understanding. Complete blasphemy is what that whole revolution was. The whole of France will burn in the fire of He–"

"Gerald!" Lady Matlock snapped.

"Excuse me Sir, but by that logic, surely the whole of Britain must burn too?"

Darcy, Dick, Viscount and Porky looked at me like I'd just slapped the Earl in the face. Perhaps, socially, I just had. But do you think I cared?

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Well, we lopped King Charles' head of years before the French got around to doing the same. Granted they might have gone a bit more guillotine happy, but there's only so far down you can push people before the spring right back up and punch you in the nose. That counts for all people. _"The people". _The majority of people. All over the world. It's no wonder they revolt if the only thing they have to lose is their chains."

"So you're saying the peasants are by right, _revolting_." Said Lady Bethany.

"Yes! No! I mean, I mean –"

"My wife is only suggesting that nature seems to be in favour of revolt. After all there can be no progression without conflict. And it appears that nature often aids this conflict, by giving 'the people' an ass for a loin." Darcy took another sip of his Port and then called for the next course, Earl and Lady Matlock sitting in too stunned a stupor to have remembered. The rest of the meal was passed in silence.

* * *

**A/N: **Hello all – so, after a month of trying to write an actual Lizzy chapter, I ended up writing this modern Lizzy one in a day. Figures. Which actually brings me onto a rather important point:

I've found that I enjoy writing modern Lizzy so much I can't really get the same energy into doing the actual Lizzy chapters. And I think it's a bit silly to be wasting all that time trying to write something I'm not really enjoying when I could be writing loads of the stuff I do enjoy. So I'm think of ditching the actual Lizzy story line and maybe using it as a possible sequel once modern Lizzy's done with. If so I'd go back and redo a couple of the earlier chapters to make them read a bit easier without the other story line to break them up.

Let me know what you think because I don't want to chance it if people like it the way it is, I just think it could be better if it was just the one plot. Thanks and happy reading! PPG.


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